Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988) is an artist with multiple aptitudes to whom critics have assigned
as many definitions. By investigating the Fornasetti designer we will discover the
Fornasetti painter, by delving deep er into the Fornasetti painter, we will find the Fornasetti
decorator, by declaring him a decorator we will discover the collector’s approach and
again that of the Fornasetti designer; a seamless circle.
The article intends to address the “invention” developed by Fornasetti in the decoration of
furniture production in an evolutionary key: from the single example to the mass production
started, independently, according to very modern criteria for the time. A path punctuated
by the Milanese triennials that from 1936 reaches up to 1951, the year in which he
exhibited the Trumeau Architettura, designed by Gio Ponti, now in the permanent collection
of the Victoria & Albert Museum. An experiment in total decoration that gave rise to
Piero Fornasetti’s highly original production.