Back to the top

Born in 1930 in Murano, where he still works, Livio Seguso began his life-long affair with glass from a very early age, fascinated by the inexhaustible appeal of that wonderful medium. After having achieved an in-depth knowledge of the traditional glassmaking techniques, and stimulated by his strong artistic sensitivity,  this artist turned to plastic forms, and his research led him to explore with avid interest the world of the of the great masters of contemporary sculpture. In those years, glass was not used as a medium of mere depiction, but it was in itself the very object of his artwork. Seguso’s mastery of his medium was such that it allowed him to express himself completely without being hampered by the limits of craftsmanship. The artist fully revealed the infinite potentialities of this mysterious material in an endless variation of spaces and thicknesses, always aiming at an absolute purity of forms. Livio Seguso reached his full artistic maturity in the late 70’s, when he totally abandoned the Murano glassmaking heritage, however noble, and began to focus on clear crystal, changeable and ambiguous in its transparency, the perfect medium for the artist’s uncontaminated imaginative vision. His sculptures could then manifest themselves in forms of absolute purity, non-mimetic and non-representational of anything, reaching out to seize the principle of a visible event that was undisclosed before that moment, and, in doing so, reveal the personality of the artist, attracted by synthesis and icastic form. His sculptures thus became Images of Light that seem to adapt themselves to thought only to fade away into a series of oneiric forms.In recent years, his artistic research overstepped the confines of the medium used, experimenting with other materials like steel, rock, marble, and granite, and, more recently, wood. His artwork also took a departure from his previous rounded or elliptical forms, and he began to conceive volumes in a more geometrical pattern. This in turn was to lead to an ideological turning point, not only in the choice of mediums and their poetical potential, but also to an ideational transmutation that enhanced the artist’s expressive possibilities. The new mediums, always used in combination with glass, exalt both the transparency of this material and the intensity of the light, and their ultimate purpose is to create an ideal union between intellectual rigor and the neatness of the volumes, between the sense of refined elegance and poetic imagination.

1973 Galleria d’Arte ”Il Traghetto 1”,Venice, Italy

1974 Galerie d’Art du Credit Comunal du Belgique, Namur, Belgium

1980 Museo d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro, Venice, Italy

1981 Palazzo Ducale di Mantova, Italy

1983 Glasmuseum Frauenau, Germany

1984 tNational Gallery in Prague, Chech Rep.

1984 Galleria d’Arte Il Traghetto, Venice, Italy

1986 Heller Gallery, New York, USA

1987 National Gallery Tölgyfa, Budapest, Hungary

1988 Museo Re Stefano, Szekesfhervar, Hungary

1990 Casa dei Congressi Rosengarten, Coburg, Germany

1991 Habatat Gallery, Detroit, USA

1991 Bugno & Samueli Art Gallery, Venice, Italy

1992 Palazzo Pretorio, Certaldo Alto, Firenze, Italy

1992 Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong

1993 Heller Gallery, New York, USA

1993 Festival Celebrating the Arts and Culture of Italy, Dublin, Ireland

1993 City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland

1998 Galleria Traghetto, Venice, Italy

1998 Mediterranea, Art Contemporain Des Pays Mèditerranèens, Bruxelles, Belgium

2001 Habatat Galleries, Michigan, USA

2001 Ukai Museum, Kanagawa, Japan

2002 Buschlen Mowatt Fine Art Gallery, California, USA

2003 Traver Gallery, Seattle, USA

2004 Alcorcòn Museum of Art , Alcorcòn Madrid, Spain

2005 Bugno Art Gallery, Venice, Italy

2006 Orie Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2006 Ukai Museum, Kanagawa, Japan

2007 Casa dei Carraresi, Treviso, Italy

2008 National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan

habatat

Sell your art with us

Send us images and details of the artworks you are looking to consign. Auctions are planned every month. Or send an email instead.

Email
Add up to 5 images or upload a zip file below.
Drag & drop images
Files accepted: .jpg, .png, .heic, .pdf Max zip file size limit is 12 MB
Accepted file types: jpg, png, heic, pdf, Max. file size: 12 MB, Max. files: 5.

    close x

    Latest event

    You are Invited to Glass52! Sign up for our Newsletter & to Learn More

    May 1-4 of 2024

    Want to receive invites to the latest Habatat events in your inbox? Sign up here!

    close x