The Connoisseurs: Sara Blumberg + Jim Oliveira
A daring duo take a journey through time and tradition. With a Kubrickian moment or two.
Fire, danger, sweat, utter concentration, the intricate dance between gaffers and assistants hefting, twirling 5 foot rods tipped with molten glass, surviving the process intact. Usually.
Glassmaking is one of the more thrilling arts around.
But I’ve rarely been moved by the aesthetics. With a few exceptions, it’s more about mesmerizing process, not artistic outcome. And say “colored glass” and I think Venetian tourist curlicued tchotchkes, Liberace-worthy chandeliers, and that Vegas lobby. Certainly colorful, exuberantly craft-forward, even awe-inspiring. But…
Sara Blumberg and Jim Oliveira changed all that for me. This duo, who founded Glass Past, are two of the most respected experts in the field. Their specialty: Modernist Italian glass (particularly from Murano) from 1870 to 1970, a period of intensive experimentation – and a break from tradition.
First, a little context
Tracing history
Perhaps because making glass is such an expensive and high-risk undertaking, the most venerable Muranese family-owned glassmaking companies (some of which had been in operation at least since the 13th century) chose to focus on the technical aspect of their craft, not design. Thus, by the end of the 19th century Muranese glassmaking began to seem old-fashioned, out of synch with more modern aesthetics… and began its slow fade into irrelevance.
But in the late 19th and early 20th century Murano glass entered a period of change led by two forward thinkers, one a Milanese upstart, the other a Murano traditionalist. Ercole Barovier, owner, principal designer and scion of one of the oldest, most venerable companies (and glassmaking families) on Murano, was the traditionalist; Venini & C. (founded by Paolo Venini and Giacomo Cappellin) the upstart. Together, these two companies broke with tradition and steered Murano glassmaking in a new, more modern direction – not only in technique but in design.
In particular, innovation and a more modern sensibility came from Venini’s willingness and desire to work with some of the premier architects, artists and designers of the day. Think the Scarpas (Carlo, Tobia). Napoleone Martinuzzi. Massimo Vignelli. Gio Ponti. Tyra Lundgren and Fulvio Bianconi.
The Barovier firm, on the other hand, continued to design from within, though with more art and design-driven offerings, courtesy of entrepreneur and designer Ercole Barovier.
This new era of modernist Italian glassmaking was as refined as Muranese glass had been at the height of the Renaissance, but bolder, streamlined, and more organic in both form and design. 20th century Murano glass has presence, balance, rigor, delivering an emotional punch that belies its apparent simplicity:
More Bach, Cage, Satie, Glass. Not Verdi.
Enter Sara and Jim
Artists and designers tend to get all the glory. Curators and connoisseurs less so. And yet not only are they arbiters of authenticity and quality, they can also bring light to the faded, forgotten, or overlooked. In doing so, they become essential parts of the story. They make cultural history.
Jim and Sara are links in that long, centuries-old unbroken chain of history, working as curators and dealers in the present day to help transform what had been an oft-misunderstood tradition into an important part of the 20th century design canon.
They travel exhaustively, hunting down the rare, important, and interesting, primarily working with private collectors, but also curating auctions and exhibitions, writing, speaking, consulting. But of course, it didn’t start this way.
To do what they do, an encyclopedic knowledge is de rigueur. Charm, eloquence, and a gift for story are table stakes. And it’s imperative to have “the eye”. But the pair’s specialty is in being able to bring Italian glass to life, making it vital, thrilling, important. Add to that a certain audacity and derring-do, and you experience a bit of a contact high.
The Journey
Both have a love of art history, and a major love of objects. Both came from the flea market culture. And yes, there was an early collecting bug: as a child, Jim collected old bottles (some of which they still have, still show) and was blessed with a mother who suggested that he research what he was collecting to better understand it, be it ever so humble. Sara didn’t collect but did explore the world of antiques with her parents, honing her eye.
They met working for the storied Charles Cowles, whose eponymous gallery became one of the leaders in American contemporary art and design, an integral part of that heady 1980’s and 90’s New York “scene” that turned American art into the social and cultural phenomenon it’s become. In fact, it was Charlie who gave Dale Chihuly his first, all-important New York show. And that’s where the now-couple first became more deeply aware of glass as art.
But it was a side-step into the flea market scene courtesy of what Sara calls a “big box of stuff” from her grandmother. Needing to unload that “big box of stuff” (glass, ceramics, silver), they rented a half booth at the 26th Street Flea Market in NYC and on a no-doubt sultry day in late August 1993, they sold the lot. And then they did it again. And again. Having sold through Grandmother’s things, they started haunting antique stores, junk shops and fairs. Along the way, they noticed something: modernist objects — in particular 20th century glass — could be had for a whole lot less than traditional silver and porcelain. The beginnings of a focus was born; jobs were quit.
“At some point, we had a group of Murano Soffiato pieces at the market,” recounts Sara, “And this Italian dealer wanted to take them all, but we’d have to come to his hotel to pick up the money later. I said I’ll do it if you tell us what you know about the glass and he said yes, then told us we should visit him in Italy.” At this point, 20th century Italian glass was far less commonly collected, and a couple of young American dealers shopping their way around Italy was quite the anomaly. This is where charm, intellect, curiosity, and enthusiasm come in. (“After showing up consistently for a few years they started calling us “Ragazzi Americani,” says Sara.)
During the same period, they met and were mentored by the idiosyncratic American collector, dealer, and Italian glass connoisseur Martin Cohen. “Then we started to go to Fiere di Parma and met all the Italian dealers and collectors. And by 1995/96 we were entirely focused on Italian glass.” Higher end, more prestigious shows followed, and by the end of the century they found themselves at the center of a rarefied world.
It was a heady time to be in a new world of collectibles informed less by craft and more by art. Sara notes, “Our whole generation of dealers was different from the generation before us - that generation was proprietary and competitive in a way the we weren’t. In our generation, we were disenfranchised artists, ex-pats from the art world and we all kind of collaborated with each other. We could find the material we were so excited about with relative ease. It was a very DIY culture. But things changed quickly with the rise of the internet, and now things are changing again…”
The Interview
What is it that speaks to you about glass… beyond the color, the light, the form?
Sara: I think that there is something inherently ancient in the glass I’m attracted to. And there is real mystery too - even though I understand the technical aspects, there really is no explaining its power.
Jim: I’ve been attracted to it since I was a kid. There’s some archetypal response I have to glass vessels. To me they’re a symbol of the human soul. Blown glass didn’t exist until the Roman era. Until then, glass was molded or cut or cast. Glassblowing, which was founded in Middle East in 1 Century BC, democratized it, made it more accessible. When you think about it, the Enlightenment and scientific revolution couldn’t have happened without glass. And its technical sophistication mimics cultural evolution. So you can’t have our present, complex culture without glass.
How do you know when you’re in the presence of “the one”?
Sara: We just do, which I know sounds glib - but glass has a feeling of age, you really sense it. There are academic reasons for this but even beyond that, you feel it.
Jim: It’s a combination of experience and intuition. The experience is that we’ve handled so many things. Your senses start to register all the differences. Things just stand out. Then there’s the experience of self-evidence. There’s a powerful resonance. Sometimes you can even look at things and might not know when they were made or where they came from, but they have such elemental power you feel the complexity of the lives and the process that made them. It’s like a human face, so much nuance.
And you also get a sense of what’s not right. There are so many reproductions and reissues in our field that you develop a sensibility, a sensitivity for what’s real.
Sara: It’s like someone who decided to create a beautiful spoon - they didn’t have to, or maybe they didn’t even set out to make it beautiful but they did. Your brain picks up things, all the details add up — or don’t.
When we’re evaluating objects, there’s a technical checklist we’ve developed over time. But there’s also the initial impression. THEN we go through the checklist. 90% of the time your gut level reaction is right. Most people who are experts in a specialized field are able to do that.
What is connoisseurship anyway? It’s all relativist these days, personal taste matters most. And it does, to a certain extent – perhaps in choices as to what to consume, to buy. But then there’s more than that.
Jim: I think a big part of connoisseurship is being able to see the essential nature of things. In my opinion, when it comes to historic objects, relativist thinking is malarky. Things have a self-evident quality, and being able to see inherent quality is key. That allows you to appreciate things, things that you may not even like. And beauty. You can’t say even say “beauty” these days in the art world — apparently it’s no longer considered a valid criteria for art. But then every civilization in decline starts to devalue and kill off beauty.
Connoisseurship feels less and less relevant these days, too, and I feel bad for young people who are inheriting all this. The basis of connoisseurship, and all meditative disciplines, is silencing the mind — you have to quiet the mind to see what’s in front of you — and I just don’t want this to be lost. It’s one of the great privileges of being a human.
Craziest thing you ever did in your search for greatness?
Sara: There was a European collector known for having an important collection of Italian glass who wanted to sell through us. He asked whether we would come to this chateau in France to see the collection. So we drive to this little town and get to an elaborate stone gate that had been destroyed in WWII and never repaired. Beyond those gates were a wrecked chateau, rusted cars, beat-up bicycles and heaps of twisted junk out front. We were supposed to stay the night, but we immediately began having second thoughts.
The interior of the chateau didn’t make us feel any better. There was laundry hanging from chandeliers, erotic art all over the place, a wall full of video tapes with hand written labels, and the collector immediately began talking about making dinner, drinking wine, smoking weed and us staying for the evening. When he left the room Jim pulled me aside and said, “We’re not eating or drinking anything while we’re here!”
When the collector reappeared he took us into another room, and it was filled with amazing glass, which we carefully examined. Then, while Jim was using bathroom, the collector took me over to what looked like an operating table covered by a sheet. He lifted it; I was expecting a body. But it was just a synthesizer keyboard.
Still, the whole scene freaked us out, and we kept trying to make our escape (while remaining polite). Finally, after about 6 hours, we drove two hours back to the hotel we stayed in the night before. We were so happy to make it back alive that we went out for an over-the-top dinner and drank a bottle of Gosset Grand Brut Rose.
SO you two are the first collecting/dealing couple I’ve interviewed. How do you work together? Are you always in sync?
Jim: In finding the material, Sara is the “no” person, and I’m the yes person. Sara is the cynic, the suspicious one. I want to believe.
Sara: And when it comes to selling, Jim is the back of house: he’s amazing at research, does most of that work, writing, etc. but then when the show is on, he’s been known to disappear! I happily deal with the public.
Jim: Yeah, I’m brought in for the nerdy minutiae.
We’re sitting in your very low-key cool home, surrounded by glass, ceramics, art, a sublime collection of books: my personal idea of heaven. Do you both collect, or do things move in and out on a regular basis? What would you collect PERSONALLY?
Sara: We collect ceramics and art and glass. Especially Early American glass… lots of design objects. We still have almost everything we bought from Moss.
[Time out for wistful conversation, many sighs about a world without Moss.]
I love that light over there, by the way.
Sara: Oh, that’s IKEA!
A Bit on the Side: If you were to “cheat" on glass—flirt with another obsession, perhaps even fall in love—what would it be?
Sara: It would be art. Fine art, painting, contemporary, primarily abstract - we are lucky to know a lot of great painters.
Jim: I already cheat on Italian glass with American glass. But also love other types of historic glass: Venetian glass from the Renaissance, Czech studio glass from the 50s 60s 70s, a few American studio glass artists from the 70s, Roman glass… Then the pre-glass blowing glass from the Middle East, the Phonecians, the Greeks.
Sara: I love all that, too, especially Roman glass.
Your Holy Grail: What is the single most sublime, unattainable, or mythic thing?
Jim: Quite honestly, in our field we’ve already found those pieces. All the best things have actually passed through our hands. I feel so lucky about this. But the penultimate piece, the one I’d like to own the most? It isn’t even the most valuable: It’s a 4 handled monumental blue Soffiato vase designed by Napoleoni Martinuzzi for Venini, once owned by Dimitri Levas.
Sara: I can’t have mine: it lives in the Murano Glass Museum. Asparagus woman. A Sculpture by Martinuzzi in green Pulegoso glass. I think about that piece of glass a lot.
The Tool Kit
Books:
Perhaps we start with the most recent publication and definitely the most dramatic: Vetripedia Masterpieces of Venetian Glass. Three volumes chronicling the collection of the late Christian Leister, illustrating 1,000 pieces and certainly the most impressive collection of Murano glass ever assembled. Written by Marino Barovier
Murano ‘900 by Franco Deboni is one of our favorites, providing an overview of Murano glass, including extensive explanations about techniques, designers and glass houses. Published in 1999, a new edition is forthcoming, we are happy to report.
Le Stanze del Vetro in Venice has been the most amazing resource for glass exhibitions and their accompanying catalogues for over a decade. Curated by Marino Barovier and Carla Sonega, each exhibition has been devoted to a single designer for Venini and their beautiful catalogues can be ordered from the website: lestanzedelveto.org.
Murano Glass Themes and Variations (1910-1970), by Marc Heiremans is another very good overview, as are his many in depth publications devoted to specific designers and glass houses - in particular, Dino Martens : Muranese Glass Designer 1922-1963.
Not a modest addition, but all of our Important Italian Glass auction catalogues for Wright since 2012 are fantastic. We had the great pleasure of working with Jen Mahanay, the former Artistic Director at Wright, and together we built beautiful and thoughtful books for each sale. And the contents! Some of the world’s best collections can be seen here.
Social Details
https://www.instagram.com/glasspast/
There’s more, so much more to the conversation – to be included in another piece. Follow them, find their shows, and attend. If my conversations with them were any indication, you’ll not only surround yourselves with beguiling objects, but find yourself immersed in history, philosophy, and what it means to live. And a hot tip: as luck had it, I’d just finished reading Tracy Chevalier’s The Glassmaker before I interviewed them. I somewhat shamefacedly admitted to have read it. Then they read it, reporting back that Chevalier basically got a lot right, though the author hadn’t spent much time on Muranese modern. I’ll very happily leave it to Jim and Sara to write that story. It’ll be a humdinger.