Carlo Nason
The Italian lighting designer Carlo Nason (1935–2026) was born in Murano – one of the world’s great centers of glass artistry – into one of the oldest and most respected glassmaking families. Across a career spanning over five decades, Nason produced more than 1,000 glass objects – from lamps and vases to tableware and sculptural pieces – making him one of the most prolific and accomplished figures in mid-20th-century Italian glass and lighting design.
THE SON OF MURANO
Carlo Nason was born into glassmaking. His father, Vincenzo Nason, led the glassworks Nason Moretti before founding his own Murano glass factory V Nason & C in the 1930s. From an early age, Carlo was immersed in the world of glass, lighting the coal-powered ovens alongside his father, watching the master artisans at work, absorbing the rhythm and rituals of the craft. The family home stood beside the factory; glass was not simply a profession, but the fabric of daily life.
A career driven by curiosity
For over five decades, Carlo Nason treated design as an open field of inquiry, guided by instinct and curiosity. Not every exploration reached production; some prototypes proved too complex, others impossible to industrialize. But the willingness to risk failure was the point, and it was through experimentation that he expanded what glass could express and do.
CELEBRATING AN ICON
Held in collections from MoMA to the Corning Museum of Glass, Carlo Nason's work carries the same luminous, layered quality as the Venetian lagoon he lived beside all his life. Until his death in May 2026, he remained in the Murano home where he was born, its ever-shifting waters quietly mirroring the clarity and depth that defined his glass.