PIERO FORNASETTI 1913-1988
FURNITURE AND OBJECTS
Stephen Neil Greengard [text], Gallery 280
Stephen Neil Greengard [text]: PIERO FORNASETTI 1913-1988: FURNITURE AND OBJECTS. New York City: Gallery 280, 1989. First edition. A very good staple-bound booklet with thick printed wrappers and minor shelf wear including a dampstain on the cover's bottom right-hand edge -- faint translation to the interior pages, but stain does not occlude any images or text. Otherwise, interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print.
8 x 8 staple-bound booklet with a double fold-out in the center and 19 examples of Fornasetti's work including chests, a refrigerator on wheels, chairs, linoleum cuts, secretarys, plates, a table, screens and a tea service. Published in conjunction with an exhibit of the same name: Gallery 280, New York City [1989/1990].
From Suzanne Sleshin's New York Times article "In a SoHo Show, the Wit and Whimsy of Piero Fornasetti," December 21, 1989: "Rick Gallagher cannot remember exactly when he first became interested in the work of Piero Fornasetti. 'All I know,' Mr. Gallagher said, 'is that the first things I saw were plates with whimsical recipes, like how to cook a dragon or a dodo, but all completely deadpan.' That was 10 years ago at a flea market in New Jersey. Now, at their Gallery 280 in SoHo, Mr. Gallagher and his partner Alesh Loren have put together the most ambitious exhibition to date of the work of Mr. Fornasetti, the Italian decorative artist who died last year at the age of 74."
"I believe that one day, when he was young, Fornasetti must have had a truly startling vision. I don't know if it was during the day or by night, but suddenly he must have seen the whole world explode into the air, the whole world and all of history and all the accumulation of its figures, memories and all the stones, the bodies, the trees, the houses and the monuments. Everything flew into the air and finished up in an infinite, opaque cloud full of rubbish that rose like a nuclear mushroom and then, slowly, in chilling silince, began to descent, falling heavily - perhaps on fornasetti's head, or perhaps on his table or on his paintbrush or perhaps even simply on the floor of his room. it must have been a bit like in an Michelangelo Antonioni film ..." Ettore Sottsass
Piero Fornasetti is widely recognized as a visionary designer, artist, illustrator, printer, graphic designer, craftsman, manufacturer and businessman. He established an enduring reputation as a designer with a style that was all his own, a style based on illusionism, architectural perspectives and a host of personal leitmotifs, such as the sun, playing cards and fishes, from which he spun seemingly endless variations. 'He makes objects speak' said Gio Ponti, his friend and longtime collaborator.