Large blue “Sommerso” bud vase, circa 1955

Born in Chioggia in 1900, Flavio Poli trained at the Istituto d'Arte in Venice and began his career as a ceramicist. In 1929 he turned to glass, designing animals, figures and bowls in solid glass for Libero Vitali's I.V.A.M. in Murano.

In 1934 he became artistic director of the Barovier Seguso & Ferro glassworks, becoming a partner in 1937, when the firm took the name Seguso Vetri d'Arte. With the master glassmaker Archimede Seguso, who withdrew in 1944, he produced lighting, sculptures in bubbled glass and animals in solid glass. In the 1950s he developed the Sommersi, vases of pared-back form in which several layers of transparent coloured glass envelop one another. His vase model 9822 received one of the first Compasso d'Oro awards in 1954, at the 10th Milan Triennale.

Poli left Seguso in 1963 and from 1964 to 1966 headed the art glass division of the Società Veneziana di Conterie e Cristallerie. He died in Venice in 1984. His work is held by the Museo del Vetro in Murano, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA.

All pieces by Flavio Poli (3)

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