Dino Martens

DINO MARTENS  Italian, 1894-1970

Italian painter and designer, Dino Martens was born in Venice where he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti.
In the mid twenties he moved to Murano, where for a short time he was a decorator for the glass factory S.A.L.I.R. Later he worked as a designer for Salviati & C. and the Successori Andrea Rioda.
He exhibited his paintings in the Novecento style at the Biennale di Venezia between 1924 and 1930.

Upon his return from the African War in 1939, he became artistic director of the glass factory Aureliano Toso. From 1946 to 1960 Martens designed a series of works for Toso, using traditional Venetian techniques, he was able to obtain strikingly original polychrome effects, combined with particularly daring asymmetric shapes and a marked difficulty of execution including the compositions of glass rods called Zanfirici, the colorful pieces composed with irregular shadings, and inserts of avventurina and rods of filigrana called Oriente and the unusual shapes of the Sommersi with the outside surface battuta and the inside cased with polychrome glass.

His collaboration with the Aureliano Toso ended in 1963.