Piero Fornasetti: Practical Madness

Description

Piero Fornasetti was a master of the decorative imagination. He employed illusionism, architectural perspectives and a host of personal leitmotifs - the sun, playing cards, still lifes, libraries, harlequins, newspapers, the face of a once-famous opera singer - in seemingly endless variations on plates, chairs, desks, screens, scarves, cabinets and decorative objects of every kind. As Gio Ponti, his friend and collaborator said: 'he makes objects speak.' Fornasetti's oeuvre is celebrated here in a publication that marks him out as a virtuoso conjurer of dream and illusion. Captured in paintings, drawings and photographs from the family and studio archives, Fornasetti's designs testify to a unique imaginative genius.

Patrick Mauries is a writer and publisher of many notable titles on fashion and design, including Jewelry by Chanel, A Cabinet of Rarities, The World According to Karl and Fashion Quotes to name a few, all published by Thames & Hudson.

'A handsome new volume, thoughtfully edited... it is a valuable object in itself, its design an example of how to make high-end art books remain covetable' - World of Interiors