Finns at Venini

After the Second World War, glass making experienced a revival in Europe, in the southern as well as in the Nordic peripheries, notably in Murano, near to Venice, and in Finland. Relations between these two poles were not, however, characterised by rivalry, but rather by a mutual fascination.

Thanks to Venini & Co., founded in 1921 by Paolo Venini in Murano, traditional Venetian techniques and southern colours were mingled with Nordic shapes. In fact, after beginning with the sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi and the architect Carlo Scapa, Paolo Venini initiated a fruitful cooperation with Scandinavian glass centres and called upon international artists. Thus, from 1937, Venini & Co. welcomed the Swedish ceramics artist, Tyra Lundgren. The death of Paolo Venini in 1959 did not put an end to these exchanges. A collaboration with Tapio Wirkkala (1915–1985) began in the middle of the 1960s, and Timo Sarpaneva (1926–2006) experimented in 1989–1990 with techniques then unknown in Finland. More recently, in 1999, Harri Koskinen (1970) came to enrich the list of various emblematic faces of Finnish design taking part in this adventure.

The exhibition Finns at Venini offers an insight into the remarkable dialogue between North and South through the prolific collaboration between Finnish designers and Venetian glass masters with an unequalled savoir-faire.