Venice exhibition details collaboration between artists and Murano glassblowers

Egidio Costantini, a Venice entrepreneur, established a gallery to produce artistic glass sculptures by combining contemporary art designs with the skills of master glassblowers on the island of Murano.

Costantini founded the Fucina degli Angeli gallery in 1955 to showcase these experiments. From that period until the 1970s, he acted as a bridge between more than 100 international artists and the traditional glassmakers of Murano.

His work differed from the large commercial series produced by traditional furnaces like Venini, focusing instead on unique artistic interpretations. Art historian Cristina Beltrami curated a new exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice to document the history of the gallery from the 1950s to the 1980s. The display features more than 100 works of glass, painting, and sculpture, along with archives that have not been studied in depth before.

The collection includes glass versions of works by famous figures such as Max Ernst and Oskar Kokoschka. The exhibition also reveals the role of collector Peggy Guggenheim in supporting the gallery financially. Her connections allowed Costantini to exhibit his work across Europe and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

While some artists like Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau collaborated closely with the project, others like Swiss artist Walter Bodmer stopped participating after their designs were simplified into glass vessels.