In Verona, an exhibition dedicated to the glassware of Carlo Scarpa, in his Castelvecchio Museum

The great architect Carlo Scarpa (Venice, 1906 - Sendai, 1978) is the protagonist of an exhibition scheduled from November 23, 2019, to March 29, 2020, in the Sala Boggian of the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, for which Scarpa himself oversaw the restoration and layout. The exhibition is entitled Carlo Scarpa. Glass and Drawings 1925 - 1931 and is dedicated to the collaboration between Scarpa and the glassworks Maestri Vetrai Muranesi Cappellin & C. (The exhibition was born of the collaboration with Le Stanze Del Vetro and Pentagram Stiftung and is curated by Marino Barovier, among the most reputed major of Murano glass art, Alba Di Lieto and Ketty Bertolaso, both of the Direction of the Civic Museums of the City of Verona.

The public will have the opportunity to see about sixty works executed by Maestri Vetrai Muranesi Cappellin & C. during the years of collaboration with Scarpa, which will be juxtaposed with about thirty drawings attributable to the Venetian architect, made for the glassworks. The exhibition is intended to be an opportunity to compare the final creation, in this case the selection of glass on display, the original drawings and the period photographic documentation. In fact, the Carlo Scarpa Archive in Verona, located at the Castelvecchio Museum, preserves, along with the graphic collection on the restoration of Castelvecchio, the collection of drawings and photographs related to Cappellin’s glass. Acquired in 2004 as part of the initiatives promoted by the Carlo Scarpa Joint Committee (2002-2013) State - Region of Veneto, thanks to Aldo Businaro, the important collection was entirely entrusted by the Region of Veneto to the Veronese Scarpa Archive institutionalized in those same years.

The legacy left by Carlo Scarpa with his work at Castelvecchio, which today constitutes a museographic model inseparable from his archive of drawings, represents a continuous impulse for the activity of enhancing museum heritage. The exhibition was thus also created to learn about a further piece of the work of one of the masters of twentieth-century architecture, and to open to a wide audience a hidden segment of the Archive of Drawings, visible only on this rare and temporary occasion.

The Verona exhibition draws from the one held in the Stanze del Vetro on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Venice, and entitled La vetreria M.V.M. Cappellin e il giovane Carlo Scarpa 1925-1931, curated by Marino Barovier, in late 2018 and early 2019. The Civic Museums of Verona is thus latching on to a precise exhibition line dedicated to the great Venetian architect, while at the same time following up on a path of valorization of the art of glassmaking initiated in 1960 by Licisco Magagnato with the exhibition Vetri di Murano 1860-1960, staged by Carlo Scarpa himself at the Palazzo della Gran Guardia under the curatorship of Astone Gasparetto. It was on that very occasion that Scarpa designed some display cases for the exhibition that will now be found in the exhibition in the Boggian Hall, restored and reused in the layout by architect Ferruccio Franzoia: a pupil and collaborator of the Venetian master, collector and expert in the art of glassmaking. In recent years, two other exhibitions bear witness to the constant interest in glass-related artistic activity, namely Vinicio Vianello: The Design of Glass (2007) and Giorgio Vigna. Natural States (2013). In the latter exhibition, the artist was able to create an intense and close dialogue between his own works, ancient art and the architecture of the famous Scarpa museum complex.

“An interesting opportunity,” explains Verona City Councilor for Culture Francesca Briani, “to see some of the most important achievements of the glass production of the young Carlo Scarpa, at the time a designer and future promising architect, a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. In addition, the exhibition makes it possible to enhance the activity of the Carlo Scarpa Digital Archive, of which the Castelvecchio Museum is the custodian, while at the same time offering the opportunity to admire design works of the highest level. The creations produced by Scarpa since 1925, in fact, opened the Cappellini glassworks to modernity and international fame.”

Coinciding with the opening to the public on Nov. 23, a series of initiatives in collaboration with private and public entities also kicks off, drawing inspiration from the ancient world such as the Vetri Romani exhibition at MATR Archaeological Museum at the Roman Theater, curated by Margherita Bolla, and moving on from Carlo Scarpa to the contemporary. Finally, accompanying the exhibition will be a catalog published by Franco Cosimo Panini. For info you can visit the Castelvecchio Museum website.

Pictured: Milky glass spherical vase with Phoenician amethyst decoration. Amethyst glass mouth. Surface finished by iridation. 1928-29, private collection.

In Verona, an exhibition dedicated to the glassware of Carlo Scarpa, in his Castelvecchio Museum

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