Peggy Guggenheim

1964

For many years the level of bad taste into which Murano glass had fallen saddened me; I was sorry that this noble and ancient art had sunk so low.

So I was happy when Egidio Costantini came to me and asked me to help him create glass objects drawn from the designs of contemporary artists.

A year later, when the project had become reality, John Russell wrote in Vogue: “In the past no one would have dared speak ill of Venetian glass.

Like Dresden porcelain, Limoges enamels and Toledo blades, it had a proverbial fame; it was the symbol of the best one could have.

But with the passing of time the virtuosity of the glass craftsmen became the cause of their artistic decline: silly naiveties and the slavery of mass production replaced the creative flair of olden times, and in recent years a single man, Venini, created glass worthy of the ancient tradition.

Leaving aside this single exception, Venetian glass had become a byword for bad taste, as it had once been for artistic expression. Such was the situation fifteen years ago, when Egidio Costantini opened the ‘Fucina degli Angeli’, convinced that something could still be done with the inherited skill of the Venetian glassmakers.

More precisely, he believed it was possible to create an art form halfway between sculpture and glass, and that this means of artistic expression would tempt the great artists to use it.

As early as 1958 Jean Cocteau, thanks to Costantini’s initiative, had said that Murano had earned a name for something other than the anonymous junk of recent years.

This summer the ‘Fucina degli Angeli’ gave sound proof of its substance by presenting works by Arp, Picasso, Braque, Ernst, Cocteau, Magnelli, Le Corbusier, Calder, Kokoschka, Yves Klein and Arman, who all agreed to express their art through glass.”

Catalogue of the exhibition at the Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, 1964/65.

1967

When, in 1963, Egidio Costantini came to me with his problems, I was able, with enthusiasm, to help him.

His work has since proved to be even better than I expected.

He is the only person in Venice since the 18th century who produces truly artistic ornamental glass.

I follow his work with great interest, and I find that it is constantly developing.

This gives me great pleasure, and every success of his makes me happy.

Catalogue of the exhibition at the Galleria d’Arte Martano, Turin, 1967/68.