MURANO: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection David Revere McFadden

True collectors believe in love at first sight. Like lovers, they speak poetically about the feel of an object, encompassing visual, tactile, and emotional qualities. And, like any lover, collectors are passionate, idiosyncratic, and obsessive at the same time, urged forward only by their unfulfilled dreams. New York collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu set off on their personal odyssey into the world of Murano with the purchase of a green and blue hourglass designed by Paolo Venini in 1955; acquired impulsively at Sotheby’s New York. Since that time, the Olnick Spanu Collection of Murano Glass achieved international prominence through a major exhibition devoted to almost three hundred works chosen from a comprehensive collection that has over five hundred glassworks. Venetian Glass: The Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu Collection was first presented at the Museum of Arts and Design from September 13, 2000, to January 6, 2001. Then a revised exhibition traveled to Italy at Milan’s Spazio Oberdan from September 29, 2001 to December 9, 2001. The exhibition in Milano was titled Murano: Vetri dalla Collezione Olnick Spanu. A fully illustrated catalogue has been prepared for both exhibitions in cooperation with Venetian glass historian Marino Barovier featuring spectacular photographs made by Luca Vignelli and designed with the grace and elegance that is a hallmark of the work of the designers Lella and Massimo Vignelli. The exhibition and catalogues are a testament to the vision and passion of the collectors. Giorgio Spanu talks about vibrations he receives when he sees a piece of glass that he knows will be in the Olnick Spanu collection. Both Giorgio and Nancy have seen thousands of works of glass, but only a select few are ultimately chosen for the collection. Both have an incredible visual library of images of glass to draw upon in making their judgment but for both, a great piece of glass must seduce them completely before they make their commitment. At the same time, both collectors are thrilled by the surprise encounter with something entirely new, never before seen. The Olnick Spanu Collection is highly focused, concentrating primarily on vessels, especially vases created at the major vetrerie of Murano from 1910 up to the present day, with the recent works of Giorgio Vigna, Fuochi d’Acqua, for Venini. While the couple remain active as collectors of Pop and Modern Art, it is their shared love of the decorative arts that has brought them to a new plane. Modern and contemporary Murano Glass and Art Deco by such luminaries as Jean-Michel Frank and Pierre Chareau reveal their inherent sympathies in the Olnick Spanu home. Nancy Olnick has always been fascinated by the way in which utilitarian and functional forms can be transformed into works of striking beauty and visual power by great designers, architects, painters, or sculptors. For Nancy the vessel format offers unlimited variety in how people interpret the basic forms, suggesting that there is something universal about the creative process.

While the collectors have a shared vision about the collection, they also acknowledge having some personal favorites. For Nancy Olnick, a seminal work by Carlo Scarpa from his Lattimo series (cat. 46), created for MVM Cappellin, is a résumé of excellence in Muranese glass. Nancy’s love of this vase, a subtle ovoid with diminutive applied handles and a simple flared foot, reveals Scarpa’s genius at combining form and surface. For Nancy, the form suggests the powerful ancestry of glass itself in its classical form, while embracing modernism at the same time. While referring to history, this vase points toward the future in Muranese glass in the twenty-first century. By referring to time past, present, and future, it becomes timeless.

Born in Venice, Scarpa was among the earliest of the modernist architects to assume the role of artistic director first at MVM Cappellin and later at Venini. Scarpa is an innovator in form and technique of the first order; his Lattimo vessels are animated in their forms and richly colored by the addition of gold or silver leaf blown in to the bubble to create a dramatic textured surface.

Giorgio’s love of glass tends toward the sculptural. Among those pieces that most moved the collector to delve deeper into the story of Muranese glass was American sculptor Thomas Stearns’ Sentinella di Venezia (cat. 177), created in 1962 at Venini & Co. and blown by master glassblower Checco Ongaro. Born in Oklahoma and trained at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Arts as both painter and sculptor, Stearns was among the earliest of American artists to migrate to Venice and to work at Venini, beginning in 1959, weeks after the death of the founder Paolo Venini. Stearns’ powerful forms and colorations explored many aspects of the materials with a disciplined format. For Giorgio, this work is an amalgamation of what is most beautiful in Venetian glass. He has said: I loved this piece from the outset, but it had much more to teach me. Through this work I began to understand techniques, colors and forms, and to see glass as a sculptural medium. I have learned so much from it.

What does the future hold for these young and dedicated collectors? Both Olnick and Spanu quickly acknowledge that their collection is still in formation. As true collectors and connoisseurs, their collection will never be completed or finished. It is a work in progress. Their love of historic Venetian masterworks from the twentieth century is buttressed by their commitment to the artists of today and tomorrow who have chosen glass as their medium and Murano as their spiritual home. The contemporary collection of Venetian glass grows each season with works by innovators such as Cristiano Bianchin, Yoichi Ohira, Laura de Santillana, Lino Tagliapietra, and Giorgio Vigna, who find themselves in the company of Carlo Scarpa, Vittorio Zecchin, Napoleone Martinuzzi, Dino Martens, among others. As perennial students, Olnick and Spanu are eagerly exploring other related traditions, and have a growing interest in learning more about Czech, Scandinavian, and American Studio glass. At the same time, their instinctual love of Italian decorative arts has expanded to include Italian ceramics and metalwork. Like their glass collection, these objects are animated by their context in a living environment.

The Olnick Spanu collection is not a collection admired from afar but lived with and enjoyed on a daily basis. What began as love at first sight has transformed into a committed and lasting relationship with beauty.

David Revere McFadden, 2003
Chief Curator Museum of Arts and Design, New York