Italian Glass Artist Gianni Toso to Visit Toledo Museum of Art

Italian glass artist Gianni Toso will visit The Toledo Museum of Art to present a demonstration of his signature flameworking techniques on Sunday, Feb. 7 from 1-4 p.m. in the Glass Pavilion. Toso, whose intricate glass figures have been showcased in museums and galleries around the world, will demonstrate traditional and rarely seen flameworking techniques. Toso is the product of an uninterrupted 700-year tradition of the Toso family flameworkers and glassblowers from Murano, Italy.

According to Jeff Mack, glass studio manager at the Museum, Toso also is an innovator in glassmaking. “He comes at it with an approach of respecting tradition, but evolving beyond it and adding to it,” Mack said.

It is no surprise that glassblowing is in Toso’s blood. At age 10 he started working in a glass factory without his parents’ knowledge or permission. Through his teens and early twenties he studied under various masters in some of Europe’s finest glass houses. He uses techniques unique to craftsman in Murano and Venice, Italy, which are considered trade secrets. He has only begun to share some of his techniques publicly in recent years.

Toso’s talent and interpretation of glassblowing and flameworking as fine art makes him an important figure in the Studio Glass Movement, which began at the Toledo Museum of Art in the 1960s.

Admission to Toso’s demonstration and the Museum is free and open to the public.

For more information visit The Toledo Museum of Art.