An architect, furniture and industrial designer and editor, Gio Ponti was arguably the most influential figure in 20th-century Italian modernism.
Ponti designed thousands of furnishings and products — from cabinets, mirrors and chairs to ceramics and coffeemakers — and his buildings, including the brawny Pirelli Tower (1956) in his native Milan, and the castle-like Denver Art Museum (1971), were erected in 14 countries. Through Domus, the magazine he founded in 1928, Ponti brought attention to virtually every significant movement and creator in the spheres of modern art and design.
The questing intelligence Ponti brought to Domus is reflected in his work: as protean as he was prolific, Ponti’s style can’t be pegged to a specific genre.
In the 1920s, as artistic director for the Tuscan porcelain maker Richard Ginori, he fused old and new; his ceramic forms were modern, but decorated with motifs from Roman antiquity. In pre-war Italy, modernist design was encouraged, and after the conflict, Ponti — along with designers such as Carlo Mollino, Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso — found a receptive audience for their novel, idiosyncratic work. Ponti’s typical furniture forms from the period, such as the wedge-shaped Distex chair, are simple, gently angular, and colorful; equally elegant and functional. In the 1960s and ’70s, Ponti’s style evolved again as he explored biomorphic shapes, and embraced the expressive, experimental designs of Ettore Sottsass Jr., Joe Colombo and others.
Ponti's signature furniture piece — the one by which he is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Germany’s Vitra Design Museum and elsewhere — is the sleek Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina starting in 1957. (The name translates as “superlightweight” — advertisements featured a model lifting it with one finger.)
Ponti had a playful side, best shown in a collaboration he began in the late 1940s with the graphic artist Piero Fornasetti. Ponti furnishings were decorated with bright finishes and Fornasetti's whimsical lithographic transfer prints of things such as butterflies, birds or flowers; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts possesses a 1950 secretary from their Architetturra series, which feature case pieces covered in images of building interiors and facades. The grandest project Ponti and Fornasetti undertook, however, lies on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean: the interiors of the luxury liner Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956.
Widely praised retrospectives at the Queens Museum of Art in 2001 and at the Design Museum London in 2002 sparked a renewed interest in Ponti among modern design aficionados. (Marco Romanelli’s monograph, which was written for the London show, offers a fine overview of Ponti’s work.) Today, a wide array of Ponti’s designs are snapped up by savvy collectors who want to give their homes a touch of Italian panache and effortless chic.
Find a range of vintage Gio Ponti desks, dining chairs, coffee tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.
Gio Ponti : Arch - Designer Large Scale Hardcover Book c 2019
By Gio Ponti
Located in University City, MO
Gio Ponti: Archi - Design Large scale hardcover book c 2019 The prolific architect, designer & Domus editor reinvented the look of everyday life from the spoon to the cathedral. He ...
$1,500Sale Price|20% Off
Gio Ponti The Complete Work 1923 - 1978 1st Edition Hard Cover Book
By Gio Ponti
Located in University City, MO
Gio Ponti The Complete Work 1923 - 1978 1st Edition Hard Cover Book This is the first complete survey and thematic profile of one of the most prolific and accomplished Italian arch...
Louis Vuitton Le Catalogue Reference Book 1997
By Louis Vuitton
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Louis Vuitton Le Catalogue Reference Book 1997. From the Louis Vuitton store in Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills in California. Master suitcase mak...
Bulgari Catalog, Jewelry and Watches Collection 2011
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Bvlgari catalog, jewelry and watches. Bulgari "Serpenti" Collection of 2011. Hardcover catalog of one of the most famous Luxury Jewellery maker in the ...
Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People With Photography by Horst, 1968
Located in Atlanta, GA
Beautiful people, lush gardens and stylish interiors ... Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People, published by Viking Press in 1968, offers an insider's view of fascinating people an...
Set of Two Bulgari Brand Book Catalogue Jewelry and Watches 2013
By Bulgari
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Set of two Bulgari catalogues, jewelry and watches. Collection of 2013. Hardcover black cloth catalogues of one of the most famous Luxury Jewellery maker in the world. Sotirio Bulgar...
Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry 1st Edition Hardcover Book
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry 1st Edition Hardcover Book Edited by Ruth A. Peltason. 280 illustrations, including 175 color photographs by John Bigelow Taylor. "Here...
The Great Lady Decorators Coffee Table Book, 2009
By Rizzoli
Located in Atlanta, GA
2009 Rizzoli publication compiled by Adam Lewis, The Great Lady Decorators: The Women Who Defined Interior Design 1870-1955, is a who's who of the most influential designers of the l...
LE STYLE GIVENCHY Coffee Table Book French Edition, 1998
By Givenchy
Located in Atlanta, GA
Published in 1998 by Assouline with text by Francoise Mohrt, this beautiful book chronicles the fashions and interiors of iconic French designer, Hubert de Givenchy. The 206 page har...
High Style: Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
High Style Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Softcover by Jan Glier Reeder. 256 pages 358 illustrations New York Book Show Awards Special Trade, General Award, Winner (2011) Independent Publishers Book Awards, Silver Medal (2011) Costume Society of America Millia Davenport Publication Award, Runner-Up (2011) Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010 - 256 pages Published in conjunction with an exhibition on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 5-Aug. 15, 2010, and at the Brooklyn Museum, May 7-Aug. 1, 2010. High Style is the first comprehensive publication on the Brooklyn Museum's remarkable collection of costumes and accessories. This lavishly illustrated volume presents more than two hundred examples drawn from its nearly twenty-four thousand women's and men's garments, accessories, hats, and shoes. Brooklyn's collection was founded in 1903 to provide inspiration for Americas growing fashion industry. Through its Department of Industrial Design, Design Lab, and Department of Costumes and Textiles, the Brooklyn Museum became one of the most important centers for the study of fashion. As a result, the holdings are rich in clothing by American designers and the great French couturiers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The museum is also fortunate to have assembled what is considered the definitive group of works by the great couturier Charles James. Organized in chapters that represent the collection's strengths, High Style presents Brooklyn's masterworks and provides brief histories of how they were collected. Included are historical costumes from the 1760s to the 1890s; sumptuous gowns by Charles Frederick Worth; custom designs by the important French nineteenth-century couture houses; examples from the early twentieth-century houses, including those of Lanvin, Chanel, and Poiret; iconic Surrealist- based designs by Schiaparelli; the incomparable sculpted ball gowns of James of the 1940s and 1950s; ensembles from postwar phenomenon Dior, his successor, Saint Laurent, and Givenchy. American designers of the 1920s to the 1980s are well represented. Among the women are Valentina, McCardell, Cashin, and Maxwell; among the men, Mainbocher, Norell, Beene, and Halston. Augmenting this survey is a unique selection of regional costumes and historic French fashion...
2007 American Fashion Hardcover Coffee Table Book Assouline
By Assouline Publishing
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
American Fashion Hardcover Coffee Table Book Assouline 2007. American Fashion by Assouline, published in 2007 is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated overview of the history o...
Vintage 1950's Soviet Era Russian Pocket Traveling Chess Set USSR AVTOVO
Located in Алматинский Почтамт, KZ
Vintage Travel Chess Set "Journey to Leningrad" — USSR, 1970s-1980s. Manufacturer: Lentochmekh Condition: Used, in good condition, but one chess piece is missing (the defect is clea...
LOUIS VUITTON: 100 Legendary Trunks Coffee Table Book, 2010
By Louis Vuitton
Located in Atlanta, GA
In the mid-19th century, Louis Vuitton introduced his first flat top trunk to the world ... the rest is history. And oh what a fascinating history it is! This beautifully printed 201...
Maharaja's Jewels Table Book by Katherine Prior, Assouline
By Assouline Publishing
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Maharaja's Jewels Table Book by Katherine Prior, Assouline. The stories of Indian princes and their jewelry and precious stones are brought together in this illustrated narrative tracing the rise and fall of India's leading royal houses through the dramatic fortunes of their crown jewels. Traditionally, precious metals and jewels have been, for Indians rich and poor, a repository of wealth and a status symbol. For the reigning families, jewels also had symbolic and religious significance. Also here are the original drawings by great European jewelers of the pieces they designed for their exotic and demanding clients. The text is both lively and scholarly, drawing from descriptions of such travelers as Marco Polo and Tavernier as well as Sanskrit dramatists extolling the riches of India. The core of this lavishly photographed book is the encounter between Indian princely magnificence and the best of European Jewellery designers in the 20th century when many of the Maharaja's travelled to Europe with trunks filled with traditional Indian jewels and unset stones...
Gio Ponti Coffee Table Book by Ugo La Pietra, 1996
By Gio Ponti
Located in Atlanta, GA
Beautifully published 1996 book entitled, Gio Ponti, by Ugo La Pietra. The book is 406 pages filled with photographs, drawings and text surveying Ponti's works including architecture...
Gio Ponti Coffee Table Book, 1990
By Gio Ponti
Located in Atlanta, GA
Beautifully published 1990 book entitled, Gio Ponti The Complete Work 1923-1978, by his daughter and oft time collaborator, Lisa Licitra Ponti. The book is 288 pages filled with phot...