Barovier&Toso, the world’s oldest glassworks, appoints Luca Nichetto as new artistic director. The visionary Murano designer will lead, together with his studio, a new phase of international development for the company
At a time when Venice looks to the future with the Architecture Biennale and Venice Climate Week, the announcement arrives with perfect timing that Barovier&Toso, the world’s oldest glassworks, has chosen Murano designer Luca Nichetto as artistic director.
Born in 1976, with a studio between Venice and Stockholm and collaborations with the likes of Hermès, Moroso, Cassina, Steinway & Sons, and Ginori 1735, Nichetto will guide the evolution of the brand’s visual identity and the creation of new collections.
Barovier&Toso, founded in 1295, has been collaborating with Nichetto since 2022, who has already contributed to renewing the company’s communication and design, along with the spectacular window displays of the Venetian boutique on Calle Larga XXII Marzo.
Nichetto grew up among the furnaces of Murano: his grandfather made chandeliers and his mother decorated glass. His professional journey has taken him to work in the world’s design capitals, combining a global vision with deep knowledge of Murano craftsmanship, qualities that Barovier&Toso considers strategic for the company’s high-end positioning.
His appointment is part of the relaunch plan initiated by CEO Andrea Signoroni: “In a competitive global context, coherence and distinctive identity are essential. The collaboration with Nichetto Studio represents a key choice for consolidating our presence in the highest market segment.”
“Luca Nichetto has distinguished himself as the ideal interpreter for this development phase. His deep knowledge of glass culture, combined with an international vision and strong design sensibility, brings extraordinary value,” adds President Rinaldo Invernizzi.
“Murano and glass were my first school,” commented Nichetto. “Taking on the artistic direction of Barovier&Toso is for me a homecoming, with respect and gratitude, bringing with me a sense of responsibility toward a community and a heritage of knowledge.”
The appointment comes just months after the opening of Barovier&Toso Arte, the company’s contemporary art gallery, inaugurated in Murano in the Sala dell’acqua, on the second floor of the company’s historic palazzo at Fondamenta Manin 1/D.
The new gallery was created to promote glass as a language of contemporary art, opening up to collaborations with artists who integrate glass with disciplines such as painting and sculpture: its first exhibition, Glass Art in Dialogue, presented works by artists Marija Jaensch and Amy Thai. The artists, already involved in the project H2O Venezia: Diari d’acqua during the 2024 Art Biennale, collaborated with master glassmakers in a dialogue between forms and materials that gave life to a series of works integrating glass with materials such as stone and fabric.
The next exhibition entitled Stillness in Motion / Immobilità in movimento – from June 13 to November 12 – presents the extraordinary cast glass sculptures by Vlastimil Beránek, celebrating glass as a material with infinite expressive facets.
A third-generation Czech artist, Beránek works with the casting technique, which transforms glass poured into molds at high temperature into solid, compact masses. Unlike Murano glassblowing, which shapes emptiness with air, casting emphasizes weight, density, and volume. Light passes through transparent blocks, often inspired by natural elements such as water, smoke, or marine forms.
Glass becomes sculptural matter, charged with visual energy and physical presence. The works emerge from the tradition of Bohemian crystal and push toward a new formal grammar that privileges strength, transformation, and precision.
Article by Laura Scarpa.
