Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Italian Glass July 4, 2008

It is not uncommon for an artist to be touted as "the greatest" or "most significant," but in the case of Lino Tagliapietra, the pronouncements happen to be true. Tagliapietra left school at around age eleven to work full time in the glassmaking industry in the glass center of Murano, an island in the Venetian lagoon. This child, who developed into the world's greatest living glassblower (and arguably one of the greatest in the history of glassmaking), also proved to be a superb artist and educator. In the process, the course of glass art was changed.