Smoke Collection of Stemware
- Designed by
- Joe Colombo (1930–1971)
- Material
- Glass
- Produced by
- Arnolfo di Cambio, Colle Val d’Elsa, Italy
- Dimensions
- 18 x 4 x 4 cm
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, 2001.48.1–5
Italian architect and artist Joe Colombo created this glassware with off-center stems to allow smokers to hold a drink with one hand, gripping the glass with one thumb, and still hold a cigar or cigarette between two fingers of the same hand, leaving the other hand free.
The graduated sizes on the set served different types of drinks. Colombo’s initial career was as a painter and sculptor, but he later changed directions and opened an architecture and design studio around 1962. He sought to create flexible modern designs with multiple functions and was prolific during the decade of his design career before his early death at the age of 41.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, photo: Denis Farley.