Alchemy. Surrealism & Glass Art

The Alchemy exhibition brings together works from the mudac collection - some displayed for the very first time - that bear witness to the movement’s legacy among creators of contemporary glass art.

At the end of the 1950s, Venetian master glassmaker Egidio Costantini submitted an ambitious project to the patron Peggy Guggenheim. Convinced that glass was an essential material of the 20th century, Costantini sought to collaborate with artists to reveal the expressive potential of this material. The pair then invited Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and Marc Chagall to create sketches that Costantini then brought to life. Named La Fucina degli Angeli (“The Forge of Angels”) by Jean Cocteau, a collection of thirty-six works was created in the Murano glass workshop. Thirty-three of these pieces now feature in mudac’s glass art collection.