Napoleone Martinuzzi

Napoleone Martinuzzi (Murano, 1892 Venice, 1977) was a sculptor, designer, and glass entrepreneur, a monumental figure of the twentieth century who successfully fused the age-old Murano tradition with the power of avant-garde sculpture. Born into an artistic family, he studied sculpture at the Venice Academy and soon became a protégé of Gabriele D'Annunzio, for whom he created numerous works and decorative elements for the Vittoriale degli Italiani. His artistic and industrial breakthrough came in 1925 when, succeeding Vittorio Zecchin, he assumed the artistic direction of the renowned Venini & C. glassworks. During this period, Martinuzzi revolutionized glass design: he abandoned the thin, minimalist transparencies of the 1920s to introduce sculptural, heavy, and profoundly material masses. His most famous invention was "pulegoso" glass, an opaque mixture rich in air bubbles that gave objects an antique and vibrant appearance, with which he created iconic vases and sculptures of plants and animals. In 1932, he founded "Zecchin-Martinuzzi" with Francesco Zecchin, producing extraordinary opaque glass pieces ignited by metallic reflections. A regular exhibitor at the Venice Biennale and the Milan Triennale, Martinuzzi never abandoned monumental sculpture in marble, bronze, and ceramic. After World War Ii, he collaborated with other important glassworks, including Alberto Seguso and Cenedese. Today, his works, which combine the rigor of twentieth-century Italian art with the expressionism of the material, are exhibited in decorative art museums around the world.

Artworks

Pelican (1928)