His ingenuity was inexhaustible. Piero Fornasetti, born in Milan in 1913, designed around 11,000 different decorations with which he decorated all types of furniture. His projects ranged from everyday objects to entire interiors, like the interiors of cruise ships or casinos, and his distinctive style is evident with each and every project. In 1932 he was expelled from the Milan Art Academy for disobedience.
He became famous in the 1950s. His career was fueled in the 1940s by working with architect Gio Ponti. Ponti designed elegant furniture, the surface of which was then decorated by Fornasetti. Together with Ponti, he also designed the interior of the casino in San Remo, where the motif of playing cards dominates. While the new Italian design pursued functional approaches, Fornasetti continued to create ornamental surfaces in the 1960s and 1970s, drawing inspiration from Roman antiquity, the architectural dreams of Piranesi, botanical and zoological tracts, art catalogs and contemporary magazines. In 1970 he opened his first shop in Milan. Since the 1980s, his son Barnaba has been running the company in the spirit of his father and has reissued many old designs.
In 1991, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London dedicated a first major retrospective to Fornasetti. Since then, Fornasetti's designs have enjoyed great popularity on the art market. So far, almost 700 objects by Piero and Barnaba Fornasetti have been auctioned with great success in the Quittenbaum Auctionhouse.
