It’s no secret that The Mad House is a big fan of Fornasetti. Huge. So when I received an invitation to go to Paris for 24 hours to see the exhibition Piero Fornasetti: The Practical Madness at the Les Arts Decoratifs, in the Palais du Louvre, I had my bag backed before you could say Eurostar.
The exhibition, which has more than 1,000 pieces, originally opened in the artist’s home city of Milan in 2013, the centenary of his birth, and has just transferred to the City of Light. He was a phenomenon; designing for several hours a day, sometimes sleeping only three or four hours a night, and he worked right up to his death in 1988. His entire body of work numbers some 13,000 pieces. His son, Barnaba now oversees his father’s legacy and continues his work.
Much of his work will be familiar to you. The ceramics, many of which feature his muse Lina Cavalieri, whose face he spotted in a magazine and whom he featured again and again as a diver, a goddess, sticking her tongue out, winking and with various moustaches.
The wallpaper; the clouds, the zebras and the flying machines. Not to mention the books, much imitated today. Fornasetti adored books apparently, but mainly so that he could cut up and keep the images he liked. In an interview in The Daily Telegraph, Barnaba said: “After he died I called in an expert to analyse the library and although there were some very important books there, he said they were no good because they weren’t intact.”
While none of it is cheap, there is masses of it and while you might baulk at spending £450 on a tray (yes I know) the wallpaper is perhaps a better option. Or the scented candles, which cost around £100 but, and I speak as one who generally HATES scented candles, I will make an exception for these. They smell great and the pots are so gorgeous you just want to have them for ever on the shelf.
But leaving aside what you can actually have, sometimes it’s just about looking at the ideas. I’m always banging on about how we should all have fun with our interiors. Why there should be a bit more wit and Fornasetti, for me, was the Godfather of that. I love these chairs. The end ones look like cartoons against a real background.
Or what about this cabinet? Isn’t it the most extraordinary thing? My grandmother kept my grandfather’s desk for many years after he died and it was in the room that came to be my playroom. It had several secret drawers in it, hidden behind bigger drawers, and while I never did discover anything exciting, it didn’t stop me looking. And hoping. This cabinet puts me in mind of that. For more images on how it works click here.
I should tell you, in the interests of full disclosure and all that, that I was invited to Paris by Amara, who sell a huge range of Fornasetti pieces, but I should also tell you that they didn’t ask me to write this blog post. I did it because I just love his work.
Love love love Fornasetti.IMAGINATION at its best. Lucky you.