Zanotta Edizioni Alchera Chest by Joe Tilson

About the Item

Signed original. Elmwood frame. Maple panels with polychrome inlays. Inside with drop-front drawer. Designed by Joe Tilson. Combining Pop Art with a typology that has always been underrated in the history of design: the storage chest. But for Joe Tilson, a painter of the ‘highest repute’, who had the chance to encounter a ‘just’ productive reality, everything was possible. Originally from England, but always very close to Italy, he has spent his life playing with fresh, evident signs that are anything but banal, in a language that has the great merit of being immediate and comprehensible. Using ever-changing materials and techniques, his work is presented through symbols borrowed from other cultures, and recurring images of eyes and hands, mazes, steps and Ziggurat, modular forms and letters of the alphabet, or alchemic references to the four elements (earth, air, water, fire): precisely those forms which, once transformed into inlays, are spread across the side panels of Alchera, a comfortable and practical chest, perfect for storing – and hiding – the happy confusion that many objects in a child’s bedroom can convey. Joe Tilson was born in London in 1928. He studied at the St. Martin’s School of Art and at the Royal College of Art. He won the Rome Prize in 1955. In 1958 he taught at the St. Martin’s School of Art, later at the Slade School, the University College and the Kings College. Later on, he taught at the University of Durham, in Newcastle-upon Tyne. Tilson’s first one-man show was in London in 1962; in 1964 he was invited to the Venice Biennale and the British Pavilion at the Milan Triennial. In 1966 he was in New York, teaching at the School of Visual Art; in 1971 he taught at the Hamburg Hochschule. He won first prize at the fifth Krakow Biennial in 1974. During the same year, a retrospective of his works was held at Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In 1976 he was invited to Milan for the exhibition staged by the British Council in the Palazzo Reale, “British Art Today”. In 1979 an important graphical retrospective was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 1982 Edizioni d’Arte Vanessa published a monograph on him, with an essay by Gillo Dorfles for the Italian edition and one by Michael Compton for the English edition. Tilson has staged other shows in Bristol (1984), Venice (1985), Ljubljana (1987) Milan and San Giovanni Valdarno (1989). In 1990 he exhibited in Cortona, in 1991 in Plymouth, Aosta and London’s Waddingtum Galleries.

Creator:

Joe Tilson (Designer),Zanotta (Manufacturer)

Dimensions:

Height: 23.63 in (60.03 cm)Width: 51.19 in (130.03 cm)Depth: 19.69 in (50.02 cm)

Style:

Modern (In the Style Of)

Materials and Techniques:

Elm,Maple,Polychromed

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1990-1999