The peculiarity of Italian design is that it has changed the perception of the industrial object from a craft product reproduced in serial form to an ‘open form’ of creativity that evolves, embodying an epoch and a taste. We find an enlightening example of this in the history of Fontana Arte, a Milanese company that, through the direction and creativity of two authentic masters such as Gio Ponti and Pietro Chiesa, interpreted the evolution of taste and civil society. The evolution of the ‘objects’ proposed by their lines also captured the succession of social, cultural and artistic changes. From the Thirties to the Sixties, Fontana Arte changed its physiognomy from classical, decorative and high-bourgeois, to essential in its choice of solutions that combined functionality and impeccable style, to spatial in its renewed and innovative relationship with light, which merged the industrial product in all its most modern meanings: function, form, space-object relationship, seriality of the product, always according to canons of high quality construction and materials.
Max Ingrand, a French master glassmaker and decorator, capable of creating true design classics, left an indelible mark during the 1954-1964 decade of his artistic direction of Fontana Arte, which still excite with their perfect form and an absolute ability to purify elements through a line of extreme design purity.
In the forthcoming sale of Design and Italian Style in Genoa on 28 – 29 June 2022, a coffee table by Max Ingrand (mod. 1774) made for Fontana Arte at the end of the 1950s will be offered for sale. Its lines are so supple and harmonious that the enamelled metal, brass, curved, mirrored and ground crystal seem to be a single, incomparable element that projects us towards a welcoming and comfortable future (lot 84, estimate €16,000 – 20,000).
Lotto 84 | Max Ingrand, Tavolino mod. 1774. Metallo smaltato, ottone, cristallo colorato curvato e specchiato, cristallo molato. Produzione Fontana Arte, fine anni ’50. cm 37,5 x 83 Stima € 16.000 – 20.000
Lot 84 | Max Ingrand, Tavolino mod. 1774. Metallo smaltato, ottone, cristallo colorato curvato e specchiato, cristallo molato. Produzione Fontana Arte, fine anni ’50. cm 37,5 x 83 Stima € 16.000 – 20.000