20th Century Dino Gavina and Lucio Fontana Wall Panel/ Mirror

Dino Gavina began his activity as early as the 1940s with objects for theater sets, his great passion. Convinced of the need for design that was modern but also rich in poetry, he gr...

Dino Gavina was an Italian designer, entrepreneur, and publisher. He began his career in the 1940s working on stage sets. Visual arts were a great passion for Gavina. In 1960, Dino G...

Osvaldo Borsani in 1953, together with his brother Fulgenzio, realized his most complex project: a company idea named after the "techne" of the Greeks, which means both art and technique. Tecno thinking was born: the perfect synthesis between the artisan experience of the atelier and its declination on a larger scale. Tecno is first and foremost an entrepreneur's project: Italy has begun its process of tertiarization; the office environment does not yet have its unquestionable formal definition, and that is where Osvaldo Borsani wants to get to: to reinvent for workspaces that mix of formal elegance, rigor and rational functionality that the modern movement had developed for domestic living. Wonderful and unique wall mirror...

Wonderful and unique wall mirror designed by the italian maestro Osvaldo Borsani for Arredamenti Borsani Varedo in 1942. The mirror is composed of three mirrors linked one to each ot...

Dino Gavina "Omaggio a Lucio Fontana" mirror. From a sketch by Lucio Fontana, 1964. Polished mirrored steel, equidistant mechanical piercings. Dino Gavina (1922 – 2007) was an Italian entrepreneur, designer and publisher. He is one of the most important entrepreneurial figures in the Italian furniture and design sector. Founder of the companies Gavina Spa, Flos and Simon at a time when design was just being born, his history as an industrialist will deeply influence Italian design, revolutionizing the field of furtniture and lighting. Gavina was the first to work with young architects like the Castiglioni brothers, Tobia Scarpa, Bellini, and Vico Magistretti. He was also responsible for the revival of Marcel Breuer’s Bauhaus movement. He was also one of the first to understand the great importance of the store front, enlisting Carlo Scarpa to design the first Gavina store on the via Altabella in the heart of Bologna, Italy. Later, in various other cities, he organized events and exhibitions in collaboration with artists such as Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray, Sebastian Matta, René Magritte, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and Lucio Fontana. It was with Fontana in particular that Gavina felt a deep connection, and this would be one of the most important professional relationships of his career. Their first encounter in 1954 marks the beginning of a great friendship that would last a lifetime. Over the course of more than a decade, Gavina would direct Fontana to the greatest architects in Milan for the design of their products. In 1964, following the “Lamiere” exhibition (Metal Sheets) at the Gavina shop in Milan, Dino Gavina gave Lucio Fontana the IDEA to create a large metal plated...

A brass wall mirror designed and produced by Fontana Arte, Italy, 1940s.

A brass wall mirror design and production attributed to Fontana Arte, Italy, 1940s.

A brass wall mirror; design and production attributed to Fontana Arte, Italy, 1950s.