Museum of Glass Welcomes Alessandro Diaz de Santillana

Museum of Glass Welcomes Visiting Artist Alessandro Diaz de Santillana June 19 – 23

Tacoma, Wash. — Third-generation glassmaker, Alessandro Diaz de Santillana will be in the Hot Shop at Museum of Glass from Wednesday, June 19 through Sunday, June 23 as part of the 2013 Visiting Artists Summer Series. This residency concludes with a lecture on Sunday, June 23 at 4:00 p.m. which will be streamed live from the museum’s website. 

“Alessandro Diaz de Santillana is an incredibly diverse artist whose twenty-plus year career has been marked by incredible success” notes Susan Warner, Executive Director of Museum of Glass. “His early interests in photography and painting, and of course his family’s history in glass stand out as strong influences throughout his work. We are incredibly pleased to have him back in our hot shop for a second time.” 

De Santillana’s work has always merged the time-honored traditions of Venetian glass blowing with the modern studio glass movement. He began photography and painting at just thirteen years of age, and though he has been a glassmaker ever since, these early artistic endeavors are evident throughout his work. As an artist who acts as a painter with glass, de Santillana’s work is visually striking and incredibly engaging. 

Born in Paris, France, Allesandro Diaz de Santillana studied at the University of Venice and later joined his family’s glassworks company, Venini, in 1981. While still at his family’s company, de Santillana began exhibiting his own work both in group and solo shows around the world, including in Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, and The United States. From 1997 to 1999, de Santilana taught as a Professor of Sculpture at the University of California at San Diego before returning to Venice where he currently lives and works. His work is included in public and private collections worldwide, and in recent years he has completed commissioned artworks in Australia, Singapore, England, France, and the United States. 

Most recently at Museum of Glass Allesandro Diaz de Santillana participated in Scapes, an exhibition featuring both his and Laura de Santillana’s work.