FRANCO GRIGNANI
Cesare Musatti and Virgilio Melchiorre
Cesare Musatti and Virgilio Melchiorre: FRANCO GRIGNANI. Milan: Galleria San Fedele and Ulrico Hoepli, 1969. First edition. Text in Italian. Slim quarto. Thick printed wrappers. [32] pp. 51 black and white images. Wrappers lightly spotted, otherwise a nearly fine copy.
6.75 x 9 softcover exhibition catalog with 32 pages and 51 black and white images chronicling Grignani’s work from 1940 to 1969. The Galleria San Fedele hosted this exhibition in March and April of 1969 with the assistance of publisher Ulrico Hoepli.
Franco Grignani (1908 - 1999) was an Italian designer, painter and architect who first came into public view through his particiaption in the second wave of Futurism. His early immersion into optical hijincks served him well over the next 70 years.
He became a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) in 1952: “Grignani studied architecture but became more interested in graphic design. He devoted himself to experiments in optical and visual design, painting and photographs. The Milan printers Alfieri & Lacroix allowed him a free hand with his typographic experiments. In later years he devised outstanding and novel photo compositions, based on optical systems he invented. He influenced many of his contemporaries.
“He worked as art director for Bellezza d'Italia, the house organ of Dompé pharmaceuticals, and Publicità in Italia. He was also an exhibition designer. He had more than forty-nine solo exhibitions from 1958 in Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, the US and Venezuela. He was the winner of the Palma d'Oro della Publicità (1959) and the gold medal at the Milan Triennale. Grignani also won an award at the Warsaw Poster Biennale (1966) and the Venice Biennale (1972). Many museums in Italy, as well as Hamburg and Caracas, have acquired his work.”