"Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection," an exhibit of almost 300 pieces of brightly colored Venetian glass, opens Saturday at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design uptown.
Brought together by New Yorker collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, the show features 20th-century work made on the Venetian island of Murano, famed since the 13th century for the production of decorative glass objects."This couple fell in love with one piece and that started them on the collecting odyssey," said Mint curator Melissa Post.
Typically, a piece was conceived by a designer and created by a master glassblower who shaped a molten blob of glass by blowing through a metal pipe.
"(The work) is very much part of the Italian aesthetic, the Italian way of life: beautiful and innovative," said Post.
These programs at the crafts museum are free to the public, except for Family Day.