Lino Tagliapietra

b. 1934

Lino Tagliapietra is an Italian glass artist, with a distinctive, hard-to-classify style that recalls abstract (and especially op) art. Tagliapietra was born on the island of Murano in 1934. Murano, an island whose history of glass dates back to 1291, provided Tagliapietra an ideal educational environment to develop his techniques and glass artistry. At the age of 12 he was apprenticed by the glass maestro Archimede Seguso. Nine years later, at the age of 21, he earned the rank of maestro. For the next 25 years Tagliapietra worked in association with a number of Murano's top glass factories, including Vetreria Galliano Ferro, Venini & C., La Murrina, Effetre International and EOS Design nel Vetro. His influence on the American art glass studio movement is primarily attributed to his colleague Dale Chihuly. In 1968 Chihuly visited Murano and learned from Tagliapietra, as well as other glass maestri, including Pino Signoretto. In 1979 Tagliapietra travelled to the United States to teach at the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. This event marked the beginning of knowledge sharing amongst the American Glass Artists and the Italian maestros, who in the past had guarded their techniques as valuable trade secrets. The 1980s marked Lino's entry into the studio artist world after over a decade of traveling, teaching and working with studio artists worldwide.