Lino Tagliapietra--glassblowing demo, KY

[fossilfly]

I found this online today, well worth a visit if you are in KY.

DANVILLE, KY—The Centre College glass scene is heating up this spring with the return of legendary artist Lino Tagliapietra for a series of public glassblowing demonstrations in May. In addition, Centre's own Stephen Rolfe Powell, along with two Centre alums, both protégés of Powell's, will be featured in an exhibit at Louisville's Tobin-Hewett Gallery that runs through May 31.
The Louisville exhibit, "Clear Impact: Kentucky’s impact on studio glass," features Powell, Stodghill Professor of Art at Centre, as well as two of his former students: Che Rhodes, who heads the new glass department at the University of Louisville, and Patrick Martin, who runs Emporia State's glass program in Kansas. At the April 18 opening, Powell, Rhodes and Martin appeared together on a panel discussing teaching.
Tagliapietra will give public glassblowing demonstrations in the hot glass studio on the Centre campus on the following dates:

Monday, May 8, 2006 1 - 4 p.m.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 9 a.m. – noon
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1 - 4 p.m. "This third visit to Centre College for Lino Tagliapietra illustrates the strong relationship Lino has with Centre College and his continued generosity of sharing his virtuosity with glass," says Powell. "This trip for Lino will be less hoopla than his previous trips, where he received a Humana Professorship and an Honorary Doctoral Degree. Lino feels that a good student learns by watching in the right way. Having the best in the world here at Centre will, once again, furnish students the opportunity of a lifetime."
Tagliapietra was born in1934 on the island of the centuries-old center for Venetian glassmaking, Murano. At the age of eleven, he was apprenticed to the glass studio of the internationally known Muranese master, Archimede Seguso, and achieved the rank of maestro by age 21. He later worked as master glassblower and designer at other glass studios, including Galliano Ferro, Venini, La Murrina, and Effetre International.

For the past three decades, Tagliapietra has generously shared his unsurpassed experience, understanding and knowledge of traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques with glass artists and audiences around the world. He has been largely responsible for a new renaissance in glassblowing that has swept through the world of studio glassmaking.

For many years, while working within the old tradition where great glass masters execute designs of others, Tagliapietra has also designed and made his own work. In the nineties, he has moved beyond excellence in execution, and has since exclusively designed and made his own work, with continuous bursts of creative inspiration.

Much honored by the world of studio glass, Tagliapietra has received numerous awards. Appreciated by the audiences worldwide, his work has been exhibited by or is in the permanent collections of countless major museums, including Victoria and Albert Museum, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Tokyo National Modern Art Museum.

For more information on “Clear Impact,” contact Tobin-Hewett Gallery, 815 West Market Street, Louisville, Ky. 40202 (phone: 502-992-3055) or info@tobinhewettgallery.com.

For more on Lino Tagliapietra , see: http://www.linotagliapietra.com/.

[glassman]

Rago Arts is auctioning off a Hopi vase by Lino Tagliapietra on 4/22 (today), its gorgeous! estimated at 20-22k.

Wonder if it sold?

Link: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/s/lot-1851629.html

[publius71]

The below was in the Seattle Times about his exhibit as well, great article, well written and gives a greater understanding of ole Lino!


Venetian master at his peak

By Matthew Kangas
Special to The Seattle Times

The title of Lino Tagliapietra's new William Traver Gallery exhibit, "Il Mito della Fenice," means "the myth of the phoenix," an allusion to the legendary bird that arose from the ashes of its own destruction. Let's hope it refers to the glass coming out of the hot-shop oven because, at 71, Tagliapietra hasn't had to rise again: He's never stopped creating his blown-glass constructions.

Celebrating his 60th year as a glass-blower, the Venice-born artist began working in the Murano Island factory of Archimede Seguso as an 11-year-old apprentice, conforming to a training system that had been in place for more than 800 years. By age 21, he was a "maestro" — a master glass-blower.

As the new vases, sculptures and installations demonstrate, he has come a very long way. The new exhibit is a perfect example of his extensive history. Brought to the U.S. in 1979 by Dale Chihuly to teach first at Pilchuck Glass School and then to work for Chihuly, Tagliapietra is probably the single most important Italian glass-blower of the past century to share the secrets of the hot shop (where glass is made) with Americans. In doing so, he launched his own international career and changed American studio glass forever. Thanks to him, bravura techniques and brighter color came to define Pilchuck glass.
Exhibit review


"Lino Tagliapietra: Il Mito della Fenice," 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, noon-5 p.m. Sundays, through July 2, William Traver Gallery, 110 Union St., No. 200, Seattle (206-587-6501 or www.travergallery.com).

Color is key both to Tagliapietra and to what makes Northwest, or Pilchuck, glass distinct. East Coast glass is clear and plain; West Coast (also called Pilchuck) glass is colorful and showy. Highly influenced by the avant-garde American painters of the 1950s and 1960s Tagliapietra saw at the various Venice Biennale exhibitions, he transferred the abstract painting ideas of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Morris Louis onto the surfaces of his glass vessels.

Like Chihuly, who once said he never met a color he didn't like, Tagliapietra controls the entire spectrum of color. Vivid primary hues dominate "Endeavor" (2003), a huge installation of suspended boat shapes that suggests a stylized Venetian gondola regatta. Complementary orange, green and brown knife-blade shapes make up a wall assemblage, "Masai" (2006).

Elsewhere, Traver has selected works from a variety of recent series. Although the installations are impressive, smaller works better. Individual works may still have wildly extravagant shapes and vase necks, as in the "Dinosaurs" (2005), whose necks stretch nearly three feet above the vase.

Newcomers to glass can learn a lot about the virtuoso technical innovations of Venetian glass via Tagliapietra. Besides the seemingly effortless elegance of the elongated shapes, there are the complex layering and overlapping of colored and clear-glass areas and the application of delicate linear filigree (a 17th-century Venetian invention), as in "Cantu" (2006).

Taking advantage of all the skills available to the grand master of Murano Island, Tagliapietra also had technicians "cold work" many of the surfaces after the pieces emerge from the annealing ovens. Called "battuto," the slight chipping away of the glass sets up different textures and patterns that further contrast with the shiny and clear parts of the surface. Sometimes these interventions work perfectly, as in "Bilbao" (2002); at other times, the mixture of varied colors, textures and stripes overloads the piece. And some of the works tend too much toward a "front," leaving a (less interesting) "back" that undercuts sculptural status. With sculpture, the all-around volume must be one of continuous variety.

Quibbles aside, this is a museum-quality survey complete with catalog and careful installation and lighting. Called the foremost glass-blower in the world by Chihuly and others, Tagliapietra has emerged in Seattle as an artist in his own right.

Working with a team in the time-honored Venetian tradition where tasks are divided among the crew, Tagliapietra always remains the head "gaffer" or master blower as well as the designer. Years after he worked for Seguso, Chihuly and others, he is now in a position to point toward the future.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

[glassman]

Rago Arts is auctioning off a Hopi vase by Lino Tagliapietra on 4/22 (today), its gorgeous! estimated at 20-22k.

Wonder if it sold?

Link: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/s/lot-1851629.html

Just checked, it sold for $13,000.
The whole auction is worth a look, a lot of the glass sold is recognizeable as being in one of many the Murano glass books. Much of the glass starts around lot 325 if you are on the auction site, a great price reference.

[fossilfly]

The exhibit is now in Washington, until the end of July.

Here's the link for info:

http://www.travergallery.com/current/pr0506_lt.html