While most of us do not possess the financial resources to acquire the coveted items on sale at renowned auction houses, it is always worthwhile checking their sites as, quite often nowadays, you can spot captivating and alluring pieces, ideal to stimulate our creative instincts and broaden our aesthetic horizons. These pieces can potentially serve as a springboard for our imaginative projects and encourage us to venture beyond our usual comfort zones.
There is, for example, at the moment a very interesting auction of items from Casa Fornaroli on the Phillips platform (the auction is on tomorrow, 27th April, in London).
Antonio Fornaroli, an engineer, was Gio Ponti's trusted friend and collaborator: beginning in 1933 and spanning nearly four decades, the collaboration yielded a prolific body of work. In the city of Milan alone, this partnership is credited with the creation of no fewer than 23 buildings, ranging from a corporate high-rise to apartments, churches, a factory, a hospital, and a school.
Among these, the two Montecatini buildings (1936 and 1951), the iconic Pirelli Tower (1956), and the stunning Montedoria building (1970), stand out.
Several years after beginning their partnership, Fornaroli started collecting Gio Ponti's interior designs: his residence became therefore increasingly populated with notable pieces from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s.
Fornaroli favoured modernist rigor and Ponti's rectilinear designs, but he also had a penchant for works that integrated art pieces: a stunning four-door wardrobe included in this auction incorporates a series of twelve paintings by Adriano Spilimbergo (this work served as a precursor to a list of partnerships between Ponti and other artists and designers, including Piero Fornasetti, Edina Altara, Piero Zuffi, and Paolo De Poli), while a large bookcase on a bank of concealed cabinetry integrates a Piero Zuffi lithographic print.
The auction also includes an entire wall unit (Fornaroli was a fan of Ponti's integrated cabinetry) functioning as a wardrobe system and incorporating a door that opened into another room and a mural replicating the "diamond as crystal as architecture" theme that Ponti used in both the Caracas villas - Planchart and Arreaza.
Fornaroli's selection of interior design objects for his house was rooted in the principles of modernism and pushed the boundaries of what was considered possible in terms of form, function, and aesthetics.
In some cases, the materials, lines and shapes of Ponti's interior design pieces extended to smaller objects: the shape and pattern of his living room cabinetry is indeed evoked in a paper-covered ash toy furniture bedroom suite.
The latter features a wardrobe and a furnished bed all covered in Ponti's "I Fantini" pattern featuring rows of colourful jockey's jackets, which he used for Ginori ceramics in the '30s.
Besides, the auction features a variety of smaller pieces by Ponti, including glassware, silverware, and enameled works; among the others there are also the silver-plated and brass-plated bundled clusters of different-sized tubes, evoking his 1971 project for Plateau Beaubourg, Paris.
Fornaroli also collected pieces by other artists and designers, such as Paolo Buffa, Carlo De Carli, Piero Zuffi, Pietro Chiesa, Paolo De Poli, Fausto Melotti, Lucio Fontana, Max Ingrand, both Carlo and Tobia Scarpa, Fulvio Bianconi, Thomas Stearns, and Tapio Wirkkala (some of them, such as Buffa and De Carli, had direct connections with Ponti and worked earlier on in his studio).
Fashion designers on the lookout for colour palettes, may get inspired by the colours of some of these pieces, like the joyous enamelled copper coasters by Paolo De Poli and Gio Ponti's Venini canne glasses.
Costume designers may want to check out Ponti's scenography watercolour and ink sketches and his illustrations for the costumes of the Festa Romantica ballet from the mid-'40s.
Jewellery designers will instead fall in love with the timeless simplicity of Fausto Melotti's exquisite glazed ceramic earrings and necklaces from the mid-'50s.
Made with polychrome glazed ceramic beads, Melotti's jewelry pieces reflect his search for the magical and poetic, while representing a moment of liberation for the artist: Melotti created monumental and abstract sculptures and these pieces, while being part of his personal creative research like the colourful beads featured in his poetic ceramic and metal sculptures which he created over the many years of his creative career (View this photo), represented for him almost a divertissement.
In this auction, the best piece for fashion fans remains the "Balletto della Scala" jacket (circa 1950). The cropped design made with fabrics by JSA, Busto-Arsizio, by seamstress Lia Biffi, is characterized by an architectural shape and by colourful Ponti prints with a series of figures wearing orange, yellow, mint green and pink gowns on a white/grey background. The two metal buttons of the jackets are particularly cute: with their slightly raised fabric-covered edge, they look like an outie belly button.
The Casa Fornaroli auction selection serves as a testament to specific currents that permeated European culture during the advent of avant-garde modernism.
These objects remain relevant and captivating even in the present day and offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural milieu of mid-20th century Milan, a city that was at the forefront of the international design scene at the time and a place that Ponti often praised for the finesse of its designs and the skills of its designers who effortlessly achieved refined elegance and sophistication through their commitment to modernism.
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