Real Illusions
The decorative legacy of artist Piero Fornasetti.
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Illusionism is the pun of the design world. This sophisticated surface decoration fell off the postwar design radar with the advent of modernism, which eschewed ornament as well as historical references. But master illusionist (and artist, draftsman, craftsman, illustrator) Piero Fornasetti might just have the last well-designed laugh.Born in Milan in 1913, where he lived and worked until his death in 1988, Fornasetti demonstrated a lifelong interest in architecture and architectural themes. But it was not until his collaboration with architect Gio Ponti in the 1950s that he was able to "give his brilliant imagination free rein in this field, within the limits set by an architect," writes Patrick Mauries in Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams, a comprehensive survey of Fornasetti’s work published in conjunction with a retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1991.
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The Palladiana chest of drawers depicts a
Palladian villa. (Click image to enlarge)"This field" refers specifically to pieces of furniture the two produced together, among them Architettura, a desk made in 1951 and decorated with elements from the Alessi palace in Genoa, and Palladiana, a chest of drawers made the following year showing the facade of a Palladian villa. "Although a thoroughly modern designer, Fornasetti confronted the modernist orthodoxy not only through his unabashed delight in, and celebration of, surface decoration, but through his upsetting of the canonical relationship of form and decoration," observes Christopher Wilk, then- curator of furniture and interior design at the Victoria and Albert, in his forward to Mauries’ book.
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Since 1988, Fornasetti’s son Barnaba has continued to explore and add to his father’s decorative leitmotifs—the sun and moon, playing cards, fish and flowers, Adam and Eve—finding new contexts for old designs while inventing new ones in the old spirit, such as a series of carpets showing Baroque gardens or antique Roman racecourses. He is also reproducing numbered limited editions of his father’s most popular pieces of furniture, including Architettura and Palladiana.
Perennially popular with the public, Fornasetti also continues to fascinate the design cognoscenti. Design guru Philippe Starck paid tribute in Piero Fornasetti: A Conversation Between Philippe Starck and Barnaba Fornasetti, a book released last summer. And for the true decorative die-hards, as well as the aesthetic traveler, Barnaba began renting a three-room guest apartment in the Fornasetti villa in Milan to friends and clients by referral last spring, which offers the opportunity to live in an environment surrounded by Fornasetti’s esoteric vision.
Fornasetti furniture is available at Thema
310.659.8400
www.thema-llc.com
For information
on the Fornasetti guest apartment
e-mail info@fornasetti.com
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