Design Moments: Piero Fornasetti, c. 1913-1988

The death of an artist often results in renewed interest in his work and so it was with Piero Fornasetti, the prolific Italian designer who died in 1988. He applied his boldly graphic patterns to a vast range of objects, from ceramic plates and glass to fabric and furniture. By the 1960s his witty and striking illustrations were on more than 10,000 objects. The self-taught designer found inspiration from many sources notably Greek and Roman architecture. Other signature designs include playful images of the sun, moon and time and witty, surrealist versions of playing cards, human faces and mythical figures. He collaborated with the Italian designer Gio Ponti in the 1950s creating architectural-inspired furniture, wood and metal cabinets decorated with lithographic and transfer-printed images of classical buildings. Ponti said of him, "He makes objects speak." His handpainted or lacquered tables from the 1950s and 1960s achieve top prices at auction. As Patrick Mauries notes in his definitive book on the designer, Fornasetti, Designer of Dreams: "Fornasetti applied his decorative vocabulary to an astonishing array of objects – 'fashion items', as he put it, 'which never go out of fashion'."

In the 1980s, Fornasetti started to become highly collectible while reproductions became hugely popular, almost ubiquitous – the graphic trompe l'oeil look fitting perfectly (then and now) with interior styles of the time – his plates hanging on the wall or a decorative sidetable worked with so many styles from Victorian-inspired interiors to warehouse industrial chic.