Aldo Tura Red Lacquered Goatskin Sideboard, 1970s

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Aldo Tura Red Lacquered Goatskin Sideboard, 1970s

About the Item

Aldo Tura red goatskin sideboard, 3 meters long composed by two central doors and two columns of five drawers each. It shows the brand name on the internal hinges. No restoration needed. The piece comes in exceptional conditions. The exceptionality of this piece comes from its dramatic color. Red was not an easy color to realize— Tura’s results frequently being too dark, muddied, or maroon. This luminous credenza, in a shade reminiscent of an exceptional red wine, possesses a vitality that eclipses the simplicity (or ordinariness) of the form. We can deduce that it was likely made by his studio after Tura’s death, as its minimal shape is similar to that of other clean-lined pieces from the 1970s and beyond. Like most Tura pieces its patina becoming richer with time. Biography Aldo Tura (1909-1963), Tura is one of those twentieth-century designers known for their dedication to a specific material—think Alex Andre Noll and Sam Maloof (wood), Gabriella Crespi and Paul Evans (metal), or Sheila Hicks (textiles). Traditional hand craftsmanship: Tura was one of the most unique design talents of the Italian midcentury. In the postwar years, as many furniture producers were adjusting their production methods toward mass production, Tura remained committed to slow, traditional hand craftsmanship. He favored intricate, complex forms and labor-intensive processes that could never by replicated in a large-scale factory system. As a result, the number of works by Tura available on the vintage market remains limited. Goatskin: The Tura client clearly liked to have a good time and love glamour and luxurious objects. Tura focused almost exclusively on lacquered goatskin, applying it to an array of glamorous products for the home. Chocolate brown (which at times resembles tortoiseshell) is unquestionably the most common color in Tura’s oeuvre, followed by a dense emerald green. Far less common are creations in red or natural (or partially dyed) hides, while the rarest colors are dark blue and purple. Which style is Tura ? Perhaps one of the reasons there is scant scholarship about Tura is the difficulty of positioning him in relation to modernism. His work is simply too luxe and decorative, too labor intensive, and too interested in historical ornament. Like Piero Fornasetti, he does not fit comfortably within the parameters of Italian modernism; he can be better positioned in relation to the American mid-century designer Tommi Parzinger, who similarly created glamorous (often bespoke) furniture notable for sumptuous finishes and elaborate historical hardware. Tura Today: Today, Tura’s company continues to produce high-end, decoresque furniture in Lombardy, but much information about Tura himself has been lost to history. The lack of coverage can also be explained by the fact that, unlike some of his Milanese contemporaries, Tura was not an architect or an interior designer and did not have complete projects documented, published, and evaluated. The Brooklyn Museum in New York owns a handful of Tura designs that were originally exhibited in the 1950-1953 traveling exhibition Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.

Creator:
Aldo Tura (Designer, Manufacturer)
Dimensions:
Height: 29.53 in (75 cm)Width: 118.12 in (300 cm)Depth: 19.69 in (50 cm)
Style:
Post-Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Goatskin
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
1970-1979
Date of Manufacture:
1970
Condition:
Seller Location:
IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2072310149603

Shop All Aldo Tura

Aldo Tura

One of the most enigmatic and polarizing figures to emerge in Italian design, Aldo Tura is an outlier in the world of mid-century furniture. The designer’s glamorous bar carts, coffee tables, cabinets and more resist categorization and draw inspiration from Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Baroque, Surrealist and modernist styles.

Tura moved through distinct phases in his career in terms of aesthetics, influences and finishes, rendering his life’s work exciting and diverse. Despite these phases, he held a singular devotion to one material: lacquered goatskin. Tura established a furniture production house in 1939 in Lombardy, and some of his early work focused on tables, decorative lamps and more. He later expanded to bar furnishings like rolling carts, cabinets and complementary barware accessories like ice buckets and cocktail shakers. The eccentric, gleaming and luxe surface of lacquered goatskin was a constant, along with eggshell, parchment and leather.

By the 1950s, Tura had begun to use hand-painted figural panels on the surface of cabinets, serveware (such as carafes) and other pieces. He even replicated famous works by artists like Monet and Bruegel the Elder and art from the Middle Ages, sometimes playfully embedding the paintings on cabinets shaped like oversize books. Even though he had a favored color palette of rich chocolate browns and deep emeralds, his style remained consistently hard to define.

Tura was unlike most of his Italian contemporaries but held a similar reverence for the nation’s traditional craftsmanship and artisanal techniques. He never followed the growing trend of mass-produced, industrial furniture and stuck to creating small, meticulously handcrafted collections. This principled choice means that today, a Tura piece is a rare and highly coveted collectible. The Tura firm continues to operate in Brianza, promoting Italian craftsmanship and the eclectic materials embraced by their namesake designer.

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