Antonio Fornaroli and Gio Ponti: An Exceptional Shared Intent

By Salvatore Licitra, Gio Ponti’s grandson and founder of the Gio Ponti Archives, Milan

I am pleased to have the opportunity to write about Antonio Fornaroli, as it is also a chance to illustrate Gio Ponti’s work. Or rather, to discuss the output of the inextricable Milanese duo: Ponti – Fornaroli, from an interesting and unprecedented perspective.

In the selection offered at auction, I am reminded of the objects that brought to life the beautiful Fornaroli apartment on the upper floors of a house in central Milan. I knew it well, and last visited it several years ago, savouring its elegant, effortlessly experimental and unconventional atmosphere. The array of works convey the spirit that fuelled and kept the Ponti - Fornaroli duo together since 1933, initially with Eugenio Soncini, and that lasted throughout both of their long careers.

In Antonio Fornaroli, Ponti had not only found a partner who was able to understand and execute his architectural projects, but also an ally in the exciting campaign for a cultural and lifestyle renewal that was emerging in those years. This encompassed audaciously experimental technological or formal innovations such as marble slab cladding on the monumental Montecatini building (1936), made possible thanks to a studied coupling of slabs with a reinforced concrete support, as well as studies for the tapering structure of the Pirelli Tower (1956 -1960), or the unstructured plan of the original design of the Savoia Assicurazioni building (1971). Experimentation was also manifest through the intent to ‘contaminate’ interiors with works by young artists, designers, and architects of the time or samples of applied arts and crafts gathered during Ponti’s extensive cultural travels throughout Italy.

Housed in Casa Fornaroli, alongside Ponti designs and furnishings from various decades (furniture decorated by Adriano Spilimbergo in the 1930s or by Piero Zuffi in the 1950s and pieces with clear references to Villa Planchart), were a variety of objects such as Fausto Melotti ceramics and sculptures as well as Paolo Buffa chairs – all in dialogue with each other. There were also vases and objects in enamelled copper by De Poli, glass for Venini by Wirkkala, Ponti, Bianconi, Buzzi, Tobia and Carlo Scarpa. In this fantastic selection, we also see works by Lucio Fontana, Carlo De Carli with his beautiful chairs, silver prototypes by Ponti for Christofle, ceramics by Picasso, designs by Pietro Chiesa and Max Ingrand for Fontana Arte and finally Ponti’s striking bar cabinet with an integrated oil painting.

This complementarity of applied art, furnishings, paintings and drawings showed how art could also easily become interior decoration. The fact that Fausto Melotti not only made sculptures, but also flooring and bowls, necklaces and earrings; and that Paolo De Poli also made coasters or handles beside his vases, was the soul of the undeniably successful cultural and stylistic offering presented in those years, by Gio Ponti and Antonio Fornaroli, each in their own role.

This offering was certainly aimed at the Milanese and Italian middle-class, who were eager to break from nineteenthcentury traditions, but which has also been greatly appreciated throughout the world as an expression of the ‘Italian genius’.

201. Gio Ponti 1891-1979

Scenography sketch

1919 Watercolour and ink on paper. 25 x 25.1 cm (9 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.)

Signed GIO PONTI/1919 bottom right. Together with a certificate of expertise from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate

£3,000-5,000 $3,700-6,200 €3,400-5,700 ‡ ♠ plus Buyers Premium and VAT, ARR applies*

Provenance

Antonio Fornaroli, Milan

Thence by descent

202. Gio Ponti 1891-1979

Unique inset drinks cabinet with integrated ‘Le bariste’ painting and shelf circa 1948 and circa 1955

Painted veneered wood, painted wood, ash-veneered wood, oil on panel, plastic laminate-covered wood, glass, brass.

Cabinet: 163.3 x 74.8 x 41.7 cm (64 1/4 x 29 1/2 x 16 3/8 in.)

Shelf: 2.5 x 75.2 x 43.6 cm (0 7/8 x 29 5/8 x 17 1/8 in.)

Designed for APEM and executed by Radice, Milan, Italy. Painting signed PONTI bottom right. Together with a certificate of expertise from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate

£10,000-15,000 $12,300-18,500 €11,400-17,000 ‡ ♠ plus Buyers Premium and VAT, ARR applies*

Provenance

Antonio Fornaroli, Milan

Thence by descent

Literature

‘Dimostrazione di qualità del lavoro nostro’, Domus, no. 226, April 1948, section with painting illustrated p. 60

203. Gio Ponti 1891-1979

Group of nine glasses circa 1946

A canne glass.

Each: 5.8 cm (2 1/4 in.) high

Produced by Venini & C., Murano, Italy. Together with a certificate of expertise from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate

£1,800-2,400 $2,200-3,000 €2,000-2,700 ‡ plus Buyers Premium and VAT*

Provenance

Antonio Fornaroli, Milan

Thence by descent

Literature

‘Venini’, Domus, no. 361, December 1959, p. 41 Marino Barovier and Carla Sonego, Paolo Venini and his Furnace, Milan, 2016, pp. 384-87, 393

204. Gio Ponti 1891-1979

Prototype armchair circa 1945

Fabric, walnut.

75.2 x 71.7 x 68.5 cm (29 5/8 x 28 1/4 x 26 7/8 in.) Together with a certificate of expertise from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate

£5,000-7,000 $6,200-8,600 €5,700-8,000 ‡ plus Buyers Premium and VAT*

Provenance

Antonio Fornaroli, Milan

Thence by descent

Literature

Paolo Piccione, Gio Ponti: Le Navi: Il Progetto degli Interni Navali, 1948-1953, Viareggio, 2007, pp. 98-99, 100-01 for similar examples

Ugo La Pietra, ed., Gio Ponti: L’Arte si innamora dell’Industria, New York, 2009, pp. 202-03 for similar examples

Sophie Bouilhet-Dumas, Dominique Forest, Salvatore Licitra, eds., Gio Ponti: Archi-Designer, Paris, 2018, p. 129 for similar examples