Murano Venini Glass "Totem" Floor or Table Lamp by Toso & Massari Italy 2001

Italian designer and architect Renato Toso creates beautiful mid-century modern and modern pendant lights and sconces out of creamy Murano glass. His designs have a chic retro appeal characterized by soft curves and effortless elegance. He is part of the design firm Toso, Massari & Associates, which he founded with his wife, designer Giovanna Noti Massari.

Toso was born in 1940 in Murano, Italy. Murano is a Venetian island with a long glassmaking tradition. Both Toso and Massari studied architecture in Venice and founded Toso, Massari & Associati in 1966. The studio specializes in architecture and lighting design for interior and industrial spaces. 

Toso, Massari & Associati has partnered with numerous companies over the years, including lighting company Leucos, which Toso and Massari participated in founding. The studio has designed collections for historic lighting manufacturer Vistosi, one of Murano’s most prominent glassmakers. In 2007, Toso, Massari & Associati created a series of modular lamps called Ecos for the company. This series was followed up in 2013 by the Noon lamp collection, based on the moon’s phases.

The studio has won first place in several design competitions and shows, including the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennial XII and the National Design Competition in Trieste. Its work has been exhibited at the Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Today, Toso and Massari’s children — Anna, Marco, Pio and Tito —are all part of Toso, Massari & Associati.

On 1stDibs, find Renato Toso lighting, decorative objects, serveware and more.

Beginning in the 1930s — and throughout the postwar years especially — Venini & Co. played a leading role in the revival of Italy’s high-end glass industry, pairing innovative modernist designers with the skilled artisans who created extraordinary chandeliers, sconces and other lighting in the centuries-old glass workshops on the Venetian island of Murano.

While the company’s co-founder, Paolo Venini (1895–1959), was himself a highly talented glassware designer, his true genius was to invite forward-thinking Italian and international designers to Murano’s hallowed workshops to create Venini pieces — among them Gio Ponti, Massimo Vignelli, Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala, Thomas Stearns of the United States and Fulvio Bianconi.

Paolo Venini trained and practiced as a lawyer for a time, though his family had been involved with glassmaking for generations. After initially buying a share in a Venetian glass firm — he and antiques dealer Giacomo Cappellin established Vetri Soffiati Cappellin Venini & C. in 1921 — Venini took over the company as his own in 1925, and under his direction, it produced mainly classical Baroque designs.

In 1932, Venini hired the young Carlo Scarpa— who would later distinguish himself as an architect — as his lead designer. Scarpa, working in concert with practiced glass artisans, completely modernized Venini, introducing simple, pared-down forms; bright primary colors; and bold patterns such as stripes, banding and abstract compositions that utilized cross sections of murrine (glass rods).

Paolo Venini’s best designs are thought to be his two-color Clessidre hourglasses, produced from 1957 onward, and the Fazzoletto (“handkerchief”) vase, designed with Bianconi in 1949. Bianconi’s masterworks are considered by many to be his Pezzato works — colorful vases with patterns that resemble those of a patchwork quilt.

Other noteworthy and highly collectible vintage Venini works include Ponti’s dual-tone stoppered bottles (circa 1948); rare glass sculptures from the Doge series by Stearns, the first American to design for the firm; Vignelli’s striped lanterns of the 1960s; the Occhi vases with eyelet-shaped patterns by Tobia Scarpa (son of Carlo); and, with their almost zen purity, the Bolle (“bubbles”) bottles designed by Wirkkala in 1968. 

With these works — and many others by some of the creative titans of the 20th and 21st centuries — Venini has produced one of the truly great bodies of work in modern design.

Find antique and vintage Venini chandeliers, serveware, table lamps, decorative objects and other furniture on 1stDibs.