MAURICE MARINOT: THE GLASS

Maurice Marinot was a great artisan and the protagonist of a revolution about the techniques on working a particular material, the glass. This is the first international tribute, entitled Maurice Marinot. The Glass, 1911-1934, and is curated by Jean-Luc Olivié and Cristina Beltrami. The exhibition is organized by LE STANZE DEL VETRO in collaboration with the Museum of Decorative Arts of Paris (MAD): it will be open to the public on the San Giorgio Maggiore island until July 28, 2019. Through an exposition itinerary of 220 unique pieces, mainly from several international museums, the exhibition describes the stylistic evolution of this extraordinary and shy artist who abandoned the production of his glass objects in 1934, when the Bar-su-Seine glassworks closed due to economic difficulties. There are also 115 drawings placed side by side, including sketches and projects for objects and installations, coming from different French museums, in particular from the MAD in Paris and the Royal National Museums of Brussels.

The artist

Marinot was an indefatigable experimenter, who invented a lot of materials processing formulas, emulated in the coming decades. The exhibition Maurice Marinot. The Glass, 1911-1934 will reveal a fundamental figure in the modern and contemporary glass history, still not fully known by the general public. After a Parisian training, his career began as a Fauve painter, but with glass, which he accidentally approaches in 1911, he found his way. Marinot began to decorate some objects produced by the industrial glassworks of some friends in Bar-sur-Seine, in the Aube region. These first tests present a strong uniqueness: distant from previous models, the decorative motifs interact with any anomalies of the material. In 1912, Marinot participated at the Salon, and the following year, he began to be represented by the prestigious Galleria Hébrard (1913). The relationship with the glass became more and more physical year after year: it was a double battle with the material. Marinot was able to control the technique and, starting from 1922-1923, he began to blow the glass creating unique pieces with highly refined colors. He was used to passing from simple forms with a smooth surface, playing with air bubbles suspended in thickness, to bottles cut with deep incisions or vases corroded with long passages in the acid. Even when he kept the glass in its transparency, emphasizing the fluidity of the hot-worked mass, it's possible to observe a strong tactile sensuality. Marinot has invented a new type of glass, dense, heavy and "plump", confirming himself as a model for designers and glass masters.