Fulvio Bianconi worked across illustration, commercial graphics and glass design. His collaboration with Venini brought polychrome patterns and figures to Murano glass; his drawings also appeared in Rivista Pirelli.
Graphic artist, illustrator and designer
A long, intermittent collaboration
Bianconi began visiting Paolo Venini’s glassworks in the postwar years. The collaboration extended through much of the 1950s and returned episodically in the 1960s and again in the 1980s and 1990s. Its account, based largely on the Venini historical archive, catalogues around five hundred models associated with the collaboration.1
Colour, pattern and figures
Bianconi’s Venini work included polychrome glass patterns, with mottled, tartan and banded effects, alongside animals and roughly 180 glass figures. Some figures draw freely on Commedia dell’Arte characters such as Arlecchino and Pulcinella, regional dress and historical costumes.1
