Carlo Scarpa

From transparent glass to milky glass, from delicate simple shapes to Phoenician designs, in over 400 pages and 900 images, The M.V.M. Cappellin Glassworks and the Young Carlo Scarpa tells an essential chapter in the history of Murano glassmaking. In 1925, Giacomo Cappellin (1887–1968) broke with V.S.M. Cappellin Venini & Co. to become one of the most important glass companies in Italy, in no small part thanks to its collaboration with the young architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–78). The entire output of M.V.M. Cappellin from 1925 to1931, when the glassworks was forced to close, is documented in this gorgeous volume. The M.V.M. Cappellin Glassworks and the Young Carlo Scarpa offers a wealth of information for scholars, collectors and art lovers, including, in addition to its images, information on the production and exhibition of Cappellin Glassworks in the United States and France.

A splendid catalogue devoted to the work of an artist who was responsible for some of the most original glass artworks in art history. Through around 300 works, documents, and original drawings from private collections and museums from all over the world, this important volume reconstructs the work and life of Carlo Scarpa from the very beginnings of his career when he worked as artistic director for the Venini glassworks, between 1932 and 1947. It is no coincidence that Scarpa’s glasswork can be organized into no less than thirty distinct styles, differentiated by the technique of execution and the glass construction method used. We need only think of the corrosi (corroded), in which the material is attacked and eaten into by sawdust soaked in hydrofluoric acid.

Marino Barovier is an author and independent curator. He was born in Venice into one of the oldest families of Murano glassmakers. In 1983, he joined his wife, Marina, in the study of the history of twentieth-century Murano glass.

The first catalogue raisonné and the entire index of the over four hundred artistic glass pieces executed by the great architect between 1927 and 1947 for the Murano glassmaking firms of Giacomo Cappellin and Paolo Venini.