The 2018 bursary awarded

The winner of the 2018 bursary, who graduated in Art History at Saint Andrews University, Scotland, will carry out research on Vinicio Vianello (1923-1999), whose archive was donated to the Centro Studi del Vetro by the artist’s nephew, the architect Toni Follina. He was a genuine ‘total artist’ who managed to make the ‘fine arts’ communicate with applied arts, and match the different artistic currents on a national and European level, such as Spatialism and the Informal. Little known abroad, in Italy he is mainly known for his spatial painting and imaginative glass vases, while the design and architecture projects have been marginalised. So Magda Michalska’s research is intended to focus precisely on this gap, on the innovative town plans and interior design projects that were sent all over the world: for the Royal Palace in Addis Ababa, the city of Tunis, the national square in Baghdad and the very famous turbo ship Leonardo da Vinci, which took Vianello’s lighting creations onto the ocean. His work abroad will in this way be traced to show that his designs had gone beyond not only geographic borders but especially artistic conventions, making him one of the most innovative exponents of European, if not world, design.

During the six months of research – from July to December 2018 – the new bursar will be a guest on the ‘Vittore Branca’ campus on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the ideal place to meet the Fondazione Cini scientific community.