Vittorio Zecchin (Italian 1878-1947)
The visionary Italian painter Vittorio Zecchin did not begin his artistic career until he was over thirty years of age. He had originally abandoned his ambitions at the age of twenty-three, when, disillusioned with the narrow, unimaginative style of teaching at the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts and convinced that nobody would listen to his ideas, he left in 1901 and became a civil servant in Murano. Unable to contain his creative powers any longer, Zecchin joined a group of artists, who influenced by the idea of Klimt and Toorop, had pooled their ideas and began to exhibit at the Ca'Pesaro, the Museum of Modern Art, between 1908 and 1920. By 1913-14, Zecchin had managed not only to set his feet firmly along the decorative path that he wished to follow, but had become central to the movement. Over the next few years, he applied his decorative philosophy to glassware and tapestry.
