STOCKBRIDGE, MA.- The Schantz Galleries will present Dalle Mani del Maestro: The Art of Lino Tagliapietra at Art Palm Beach, January 19-23, 2012. On Friday, January 20, from 3:30-4:30pm, the artist will participate in a roundtable discussion, The Studio Glass Experiment: The First 50 Years, moderated by Bill Warmus, former curator at the Corning Glass Museum, and also featuring Mary Shaffer, Mark Peiser, and Beth Lipman. This lecture will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Studio Glass movement in America, beginning with the historic workshop at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1962, and discuss the developments made in Studio Glass between then and now.

James Yood, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and frequent contributor to Glass magazine writes in the exhibition book, Dalle Mani del Maestro, that “there are probably no two words more respected and honored in the history of modern sculpture in glass than ‘Lino Tagliapietra’.” The Schantz Galleries pay homage to Tagliapietra’s unparalleled position in the field, as well as their own 15-year relationship with the artist, with this traveling exhibition and accompanying publication, featuring over 30 works of art in glass completed over the past five years. From his work in filigrana into reticello, zanfirico, and murrine into incalmo, Tagliapietra endlessly pushes the possibilities of the medium. Dalle Mani del Maestro will feature work from the whimsically serpentine Fenice series, the Osaka and Fuji with their intricate mosaics, the expressive and landscape-like Venice wall panels, and the elaborately organic Bilbao, in addition to elegant Angel Tear with their impossibly long necks, oblong vessels whose flatness is belied by incredible material depth, and many other expertly made, gorgeously colored works. Prominently featured will be two of the Maestro’s most current large-scale panels: the spectacular Rio di Pensieri (Canal of Thinking) and the 56” tall Seville. In an inventive approach, blown, twisted or pulled glass become patterned elements which are artfully composed into a thick painterly panels evocative of Abstract Expressionist paintings. A similar panel entitled George was just acquired by the Chazen Museum of Art, at the University of Wisconsin.

Tagliapietra’s career has been defined by a dedication to workmanship and innovation. He spent the first 40 years of his career (he began as an apprentice at age 12) working in the artisanal traditions of for-profit glass firms in Murano, Italy, and was designated a Maestro Vetraio (Master of Glass) by the age of 21. Since 1989, he has worked as an independent artist, has exhibited in museums across the globe, and has received countless honors, including the Glass Art Society Lifetime Achievement Award from The Corning Museum of Glass and the Metal for Excellence in Craft Award from The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous major museums including: Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Tokyo National Modern Art Museum, Tokyo; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, which recently mounted a major traveling retrospective exhibition of his work. The consummate teacher, he has openly shared both his far-reaching knowledge of the medium and his skill as its finest practitioner, while always using his teaching experiences as learning ones as well work. For example, a recent lecture at the MIT Glass Lab inspired the staff there to build computer models of new cane patterns (filigrana), which Tagliapietra then deftly translated into glass, a feat that the staff there insists no other glass artist working today would have been able to accomplish.

The 100-page, full color publication vibrantly reproduces many of the works on exhibition and features an introduction by Schantz Galleries’ owners Jim Schantz and Kim Saul, an interpretive text by James Yood, a tribute from long-time Tagliapietra assistant David Walters, and a piece by Erik D. Demaine and Martin L. Demaine, who worked with Tagliapietra over the past year at the MIT Glass Lab. Mr. Tagliapietra will be present at the opening. An online catalogue is also available at www.schantzgalleries.com