Handkerchief

Venini Handkerchief Vases

Venini Handkerchief Vases by Fulvio Bianconi, Paolo Venini | 1948
Christened the « Chrome Hankies », Venini Handkerchief Vase (in italian ‘Fazzoletto’) was designer by Fulvio Bianconi an innovative graphic designer, illustrator and caricaturist.

He was one of the most prolific artists to work in collaboration with the Venini glassware company. During the Fifties he design pieces with sophisticated and striking shapes, characterized by strong colours. They will become true icons of Murano artistic glassmaking. The designer Fulvio Bianconi highlights that he believes in creative research and combines new workmanship techniques of the glassmaking art and a revision of the age-old ones thus moulding movement and colour into his glass pieces.

Fulvio Bianconi established a totally up-to-date link with the history of Murano and focussed on pieces some of which sum up the enthusiasm of the “fabulous” Fifties.
The colourful Venini Hhandkerchief vases recall with their pinched rim and broad base a folded handkerchief. They are perfect for indoor home decor as trinket bowls, containers or statement pieces for any room. The articles come in a great variety of fascinating chromatic combinations: aquamarine, horizon, grape, mint, grey, orange, red, white, orange, mint green and apple green. Timeless pieces that are an unmistakable symbol of the art and design for which VENINI is renowned and appreciated worldwide.

These masterful glass artworks make you feel the urge to smile thanks to their subtle irony, a lively sense of colour and lightness of touch. The Venini Handkerchief  vase have become a symbol of a carefree era and colour has become the signature of Fulvio Bianconi’s style. Venini Handkerchief Vase has become part of the permanent exhibits at the MoMA in New York

About designer Fulvio Bianconi:

Fulvio Bianconi was born in Padua in 1915, and immediately showed an exceptional predisposition to drawing. He worked as a portrait painter and decorator in northern Italy and in Istria: in the 1930s he will begin to practice graphics for various italian publishing companies. After the war, he dedicated himself to the creation of some perfume bottles for Gi. You. Emme, in collaboration with Venini.

Since the 50s he work mainly as a graphic designer in collaboration with the most important italian companies (to remember in particular Garzanti, Fiat, Pirelli and Marzotto on all). Also in the ’50s, as a result of contrasts with Paolo Venini, he interrupt his collaboration with the company, but continue to provide his designs to various Murano shops, and begin to work personally with the Venetian masters in the creation of glass. In those years he created some series that woulds be repeatedly produced by Venini: Pezzati, Fazzoletti and A fasce orizzontali.

Fulvio Bianconi, a staunch supporter of the artist’s creative freedom, was the first to create human figures (the Venetian carnival masks) in glass. A complete artist, he used an exceptional amount of different materials for his work. He died in Milan on May 14, 1996.