The Murano and Scandinavian Mid-Century Glass
Written by Mark Jennings Tuesday, 24 May 2011 07:27
The ongoing popularity of1950s glass, once referred to as the 'collectables of the future', shows that it has lived up to its promise. Long-stemmed glasses, trumpet vases, scent bottles, sculptures and chandeliers were prized for their delicacy, while colourful paperweights, textured platters and imaginative tableware added an artistic dimension to utilitarian objects.
As glass developed a new sculptural confidence, it revolutionized the production of everyday utensils and lent a dynamic beat to their surroundings. Artists had begun to replace craftsmen as glass designers in the 1920s and 30s, and many manufacturers had divided their production into main lines of vases, wine glasses and tumblers, with separate studios for art glass. During the 1950s these divisions became more porous, with the swirling colours and breathtaking shapes pioneered in art glass mirrored in functional designs.
In Italy(Murano) the glass-maker Paolo Venini -who started to experiment with glass already in the early 20s- become the leader in the Italian glass manufacturing market encouraging the cooperation between designers and artists to create original products. The biggest credit Venini had was to reinvigorate the Murano glass business with the sculptural and asymmetrical forms of his works.
Along with Venini, Dino Martens and Aldo Nason contributed to bring the Murano's market back to success after a period of stagnation. Martens had a vocation to transform daily use designs into sculptural and abstract objects altogether while Nason become known for the organic forms and candy-coloured motifs inspired by natural elements and contrasting with the classic but subdued pre-war Murano glass style.
Although their palettes were seldom as vibrant as the Italians', Scandinavian designers experimented with the effects of original colour pigments and the use of different additives in glass. At Orrefors, one of Sweden's most esteemed glass-works, the creative focus throughout the 1950s was directed by young designers like Sven Palmqvist. He begun to exploit the potential of coloured glass in the 1930s. In the late 1940s and 50s, inspired by the rich colours and patterns of Byzantine mosaics, he produced the Ravenna ranges, in which a mosaic effect was created by floating pieces of coloured glass within the vessels' dense walls.
The 1950s was the golden era of the Finnish glass industry: Tapio Wirkkala and TImo Sarpaneva were surely its protagonists. Both working for Iittala -the most famous Finnish glass manufacturer that produced also Alvar Aalto's designs- they created some of the classics of the Finnish design. The majority of Wirkkala's works were based on 'toothed' ice cubes and mushroom forms while the Tapio series tried to capture the lightness of air wrapping a bubble within each dense stem. Sarpaneva was an eclectic, moved from functional efficiency to superfluous luxury and back again. Especially his i-Glass series of glassware had an highly sculptural value and produced in smoky colours with a subtle metallic tint that inspired many other designers creating one of the most iconic color palette of the 50s.
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