Robert Pierini

Lives in Biot, France

Sewing glass colors

He approaches glassmaking like a painter, through the liveliness of his chromatic compositions, and has created Rouge Pierini, an intense hue that turns neither orange nor brown.
Represented in glass, design and craft museum collections in France, Italy and Germany, Robert Pierini began his career at the Verrerie de Biot with Eloi Monod, before co-founding a workshop in Montauroux and then opening his own in the former Biot oil mill.
A friend of Studio Glass Mouvement, the master glassmaker has chosen to turn away from tableware in favor of one-off pieces, vases, bottles and other sculptures. After an initial period of classically-inspired vases, he has narrowed his palette with vases featuring a foot and neck joined by a cord.
Chosen to represent France at the Grand Salon des Métiers d'Art in Tokyo in 1984, he was inspired by the finesse of Japanese motifs, which had a lasting influence on his forms. Nicknamed "the great couturier of glass", Robert Pierini invented the technique of pleated-draped glass blown in a mold, the variations of which he deployed. The style of his decorations, composed of triangles and colored threads, made him unique.