On the virtuoso creator of menageries in glass

The latest in Skira’s exhaustive series on the great Italian glassmakers, Toni Zuccheri at Venini documents the career of Italian artist, architect, designer, sculptor and poet of glass and nature, Toni Zuccheri (1936–2008). The son of painter Luigi Zuccheri, he inherited his father’s passion for portraying animals, which feature frequently in his creations, especially in the form of intricate fantastical glass birds.

In the 1960s, Zuccheri began working with renowned Murano glassmakers Venini. Fashioning animals in polychrome glass, Zuccheri mastered many Venetian glass techniques. In 1965, he started collaborating with Gio Ponti, with whom he designed a new style of window, the vetrate grosse. This comprehensive monograph, a must-have for collectors and Venetian glass lovers, covers Zuccheri’s glassmaking career in 400 color images and detailed descriptions of the various phases of his work.