Richard Meitner – Schizzi Selvaggi

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Once again, after more than fifty years of a brilliant artistic career,
Richard Meitner’s work seems poised once again to take on new and intriguing
form. The artist has worked for decades with glass, and from very early on,
frequently combined it in surprising ways with other materials. With an
impressive career also as a highly respected professor in art education, his
artworks are presently included in the permanent collections of more than 60
museums throughout the world. The work he will be presenting at this exhibition,
to which the artist has given the title “Schizzi Selvaggi”, gives form to his
intention to use the noble material glass, paradoxically, “to sketch with”.
Gestures, balancing acts, references to painting, dances…These words come
to mind when one stands in front of the wall adorned with these Schizzi, we feel
confronted with a veritable frenzy of meanings. But at the same time, entirely
consistent with all his work and intentions, none of the meanings are either
singular or easy to formulate. Meitner’s work, throughout his long career, has
always changed, surprised, stimulated, and been clearly of influence for others
working with glass. What should be further said about Meitner and his highly
unusual works? When considering that question, at the artist’s suggestion, we
will here quote the exact words of Anna Venini. On the occasion of a solo
retrospective exhibition of Richard’s work in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, in
Paris, Anna Venini wrote the following text about him. The artist has always
considered her words, in view of the authority of their author, among the highest
praise imaginable.
“I met Richard Meitner in Murano when he came to work for us at EOS, the
small factory we had opened after selling Venini; a sad period as my husband
had recently died. I fell in love with his work immediately. Those animals, those
bottles and lamps, were creatures from a special word, not simply a child’s world
of fantasy, but informed by serious scientific ideas.
What he designed was philosophical, research into a world where glass was
important, but not essential. Richard reminds me of an alchemist, and I can
imagine him doing his work in a dark and mysterious room, perhaps full of haze,
replete of course with an oven to blow glass, but also filled to the brink with
many and varied materials of different natures. I remember some pieces he
made using the typical Delft Blue decoration of Holland, gold lustres, and a
number of other surface decorations which were the product of much thought
and research he had done himself. I can no longer even describe them.
I am particularly fond of his animals, especially those strange rabbits which
periodically appear and disappear in his work. They are certainly, with their
strange expressions, creatures from another world, a “Richard world”.
I am the proud owner of a piece by Richard, one that gives me a great deal of
pleasure to look at. A long blown tube, it resembles a thermometer, but the
temperature gauges are fantastic images. A magnifying glass attached to the
piece urges one to pay precise attention, but just what is it we are measuring?
The best way I have to express what I like most about Richard and his work is perhaps
this: he lives in an extraordinary world, one that is not simply the pleasing visual
world of fairy tales, but is at the same time a breeding ground for some serious
(albeit elusive) philosophical thought and research.
It is from this place that he creates. It is my feeling that he has not only already
accomplished great things, but has, in addition, a long career in front of him as
an important artist.
I come from a family of glass makers. I love Richard’s work most certainly not
only for that reason, but also because Richard is able to approach that material
and use it with culture, with great fantasy and originality, with authority and great
thoughtfulness. That combination is, in my experience, highly unusual.”
Anna Venini, Venice, May 2001