Sunday, March 25, 2007

Italians Excelled at Modern Design

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Of the modern design that appeared on the international stage after World War II, Italy's was arguably the most prolific, with works both wide-ranging and drop-dead beautiful.

 

Recently, it seems, great Italian pieces have been popping up all along the U.S. antiques-show circuit.

"In Italy, there is a really long, unbroken tradition of integrating the design of furnishings into architecture, and a great respect for the materials,"  "The market has broadened in the last six years, in part because Italian pieces complement many different interiors, from minimalist settings to very fully decorated rooms."

"Many of us regard Italian furnishings and interior design as the greatest design of the last 60 years." says The Corcoran Gallery of Art's director and president, Paul Greenhalgh,  who has organized an exhibit with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

 

Antiques :  Italians Excelled at Modern Design

The Philadelphia Inquirer 
By Karla Klein Albertson
Fri, Mar. 23, 2007

 

A 1987 "Feltri" armchair by Gaetano Pesce sold for $2,000 at a Wright auction in Chicago in December. The enveloping chair is felt upholstery over plastic.

 

Of the modern design that appeared on the international stage after World War II, Italy's was arguably the most prolific, with works both wide-ranging and drop-dead beautiful.

Italian design schools, based principally in Milan, generated everything from architectural plans to sofas and glassware. Though some were one-of-a kind creations, other designs were produced in multiples available at reasonable prices to the public then and to collectors now, though not necessarily affordably.

Recently, it seems, great Italian pieces have been popping up all along the U.S. antiques-show circuit. A California dealer showed me a pair of elegant side chairs by the influential designer Gio Ponti (1891-1979) that echoed and went beyond the traditional ladderback form.

At the Palm Beach International Fine Art & Antique Fair in February, Mallett of London, which usually exhibits only the most traditional English antiques, featured a pair of Italian mirrors made by Fontana Arte (founded by Ponti in 1932) at the front of its display.

While those were high-end pieces, I also spotted a pair of glass Mandarin figures by Lino Tagliapietra (born in Murano in 1934) at a recent fairgrounds show. The price: only $125.

The pages of Icons: Design of the 20th Century by Charlotte & Peter Fiell (Taschen, $9.99) hold the names of dozens of the greats of Italian design, though Ponti is likely best known to the American public.

Like many of his compatriots, Ponti was multitalented, with a finger in many forms of expression - architecture, ceramics, glass, furniture, flatware, even sanitary fixtures.

Turin-born Carlo Mollino (1905-1973), inspired by futurism and surrealism, was an architect and photographer and designed a racing car that won at Le Mans.

And architect/filmmaker/furniture designer Gaetano Pesce, born in 1939, has continued to design important pieces in the 21st century. His forms, inclined to be funny, lumpy and endearing, were the subject of a Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition from November 2005 to April 2006; Pesce himself was honored in 2005 with the Design Collaborative Award by the Philadelphia group Collab.

Most good 20th-century-modern auctions have a strong component of Italian design. On Dec. 19, Christie's New York offered 50 objects and pieces of furniture from Milan, mainly by Ponti and Fontana Arte, and a separate collection of Ico Parisi furniture.

But no one has done more to introduce great Italian pieces in this country than Wright auctions in Chicago. The firm has devoted entire sales to Italian design and is including more fine examples in its auction Sunday of modern and contemporary design.

Among the items to be offered are a rare circa 1950 settee by Franco Albini (presale estimate: $9,000-$12,000), a 1958 walnut Stadera desk by the same designer ($20,000-$25,000), and a shapely Mollino glass coffee table, circa 1950 ($40,000-$50,000).

"In Italy, there is a really long, unbroken tradition of integrating the design of furnishings into architecture, and a great respect for the materials," says Wright specialist Michael Jefferson. "The market has broadened in the last six years, in part because Italian pieces complement many different interiors, from minimalist settings to very fully decorated rooms."

The Corcoran Gallery of Art's exhibition "Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939" includes the early roots of the post-World War II explosion of Italian creativity.

"Modernism" is the latest in a series of exhibitions organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; earlier shows focused on the art nouveau and art deco movements.

The Corcoran's director and president, Paul Greenhalgh, former head of research at the Victoria and Albert, says the agenda of all the shows has been to clarify for the public what these terms and movements mean.

"So Modernism is quite classically defined in this exhibition as being those movements that embraced a utopian ideal."

In other words, Greenhalgh says, the term should not be used vaguely to mean all sorts of things created in the 20th century. For this particular show, Italian pieces come in at the beginning and end of its 1914-1939 time period.

"There is a beautiful section of futurism at the start, with seminal things that have been brought over from Italy, especially Milan, including this fabulous futurist suit from 1920 by [Giacomo] Balla and a fantastic Balla wall relief."

Futurism took off about 1911, Greenhalgh says, and "its first phase went up to the First World War. It was a very romantic but violent movement, very committed to technology. So quite a few of them enthusiastically joined up in the First World War and enthusiastically got killed.

"Then there is another section at the end. When Mussolini came to power, he didn't immediately get rid of Modernism. His government flirted with it."

The better-known work of postwar Italian designers such as Ponti, Pesce and Cesare Colombo will be included in a future exhibition, Greenhalgh says.

"The really great takeoff is after the Second World War. We're curating a giant exhibition on postmodernism, which will come up in a year from now, and there will be a huge emphasis on Italian design in that.

"Many of us regard Italian furnishings and interior design as the greatest design of the last 60 years."

 

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