Piero Fornasetti

Born: Italy, 1913
Died: Italy, 1988

Studied: Brea Art School, 1930-1932

It has been said that “No individual in the post-World War II era better represents the power and progressive nature of the decorative tradition than the Italian designer Piero Fornasetti.” A visionary artist who celebrated surface decoration and challenged formal conventions, Fornasetti was expelled from the Brea Art School for insubordination. He went on to become a designer, an artist, an illustrator, a craftsman, a manufacturer and a businessman who sold his work in shops and department stores worldwide. He first exhibited at Milan University and in the Milan Triennale in 1933. In 1940 he met Gio Ponti, designer of the famous 1949 Expresso Machine, who would publish Fornasetti’s work in the magazines Domus and Stile. The two began a lifelong collaboration which ended only with Ponti’s death in 1979. Exiled to Switzerland in 1943, Fornasetti returned to Milan in 1946. In 1952 he created a great deal of the decor for the famous ship the Andrea Doria. In 1970 he formed the “Galleria del bibliota” with several friends. He was famous for some 500 interpretations of the face of one woman –Lina Cavaleri – whose picture he found in an 1800s magazine. Following his death in 1988 his son, Barbaba, continued his workshop and produced some distinctive pieces. In 1992 The Victoria & Albert Museum created an important exhibition dealing with Piero Fornasetti’s life and work. Literature: The Life of Piero Fornasetti: Important Design. Los Angeles, Christie’s, 1998. Mauries, Patrick. Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams. Bulfinch Press, September 1991.

 

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