Isabel Antonia Giampietro-Knoll

Isabel Antonia Giampietro-Knoll (1917-2010) was an Italian-born glassware designer and sculptor. In 1928 she immigrated with her mother, brother and sister to join her father in New York. She grew up in Brooklyn and received her undergraduate degree from Manhattanville College in 1940. She later studied under the famous artist Romagnoli at the Scuola dell'Arte della Medaglia in Rome. She received a master's degree in sculpture from the Fine Arts Academy in Rome. She also received a certificate from Konstfachskolan in Stockholm, Sweden.

Although she is one of the lesser-known designers of the 1950s, her work is so graceful and beautiful that she should not be overlooked. In a 1984 piece, the New York Times called her work "as graceful as it is innovative." She did not produce a large body of work, but what she did produce was unique. She designed glassware with a stem that was all one piece, creating extremely strong glasses that were more efficient to produce. She also designed goblets that could be inverted, using the stems as smaller glasses.

Her best known design is the Riflesso line of crystal glassware she designed for Royal Leerdam, which won the Gran Prix at the Brussels Exposition in 1958. Part of the line is a unique punchbowl and decanter. Of the collection she would say, “[It was] an excuse to show the tension, fragility, transparency and strength possible of crystal.” Another line for Royal Leerdam was Narciso, for which she was a gold medal nominee at the Milan Triennale in 1957. Giampietro also worked as a glassware designer for Gullaskufs Glassware in Sweden.

She was a national Endowment of the Arts Grantee in 1978, for continuance of her work.

Her pieces are part of the permanent collections at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City, as well as The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. Also, the National Glass Museum in Holland has a large collection of her glass, and the Hanneke Fokkelman gallery, also in Holland, had a retrospective of Isabel’s work in 2007.

While she never labeled herself a modernist, her work reflects a simplicity and functionality that were hallmarks of modern decorative arts. She said of her work, “I was interested in the process of how crystal was made, not just the design”.

From kaufman-mercantile.com, nytimes.com, poststar.com

Royal Leerdam Le Mystère que c'est la nature
nationaalglasmuseum.nl

Royal Leerdam Narciso
kaufmann-mercantile.com

Drawing of Narciso sherry glass
nationaalglasmuseum.nl

Riflesso line
kaufmann-mercantile.com

Royal Leerdam Riflesso
nationaalglasmuseum.nl

Room interior with a Giampietro sculpture
nationaalglasmuseum.nl