Poliarte

Glass lighting, Verona (founder: Albano Poli, born 1935)

Poliarte is the house founded in Verona by the glass artist Albano Poli, born in 1935. Trained at the Napoleone Nani art school, where he was encouraged to work with glass, he began his career restoring and reproducing church stained-glass windows before creating his own compositions. From the late 1960s onward, Poliarte applied this glassmaking expertise to lighting. Chandeliers, ceiling fixtures, sconces, and lamps pair thick blocks of coloured or clear glass—at times infused with air bubbles—with chromed metal structures. These sculptural, geometric compositions capture and diffract light, poised at the intersection of the decorative arts and design. Albano Poli subsequently devoted himself to sacred art, particularly stained glass. His creations for the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, in Rome, earned him numerous accolades. Poliarte lighting designs from the 1960s and 1970s are today highly sought after by connoisseurs of Italian design.