20th Century, Osvaldo Borsani & Roberto Crippa Coffee Table

The painter-sculptor Roberto Crippa was born in Milan in 1921. He studied at the Brera Art Academy in Milan where he was the fellow student of Aldo Carpi, Achille Funi and Carlo Carrá.

At the beginning of his career, like lots of young painters of his generation, Roberto Crippa was influenced by neo-Cubism. His first solo exhibition was at the Bergamini Gallery in Milan in 1947.

The artist was one of the first in Italy to practice gestural painting, which can be seen in his sharply colored spiral webs (ca. 1948–52). In 1948, Crippa became one of the founding members of the Spacialist group, a group founded around Lucio Fontana, whose objective was to search for a new spatial representation by technical means that was resolutely modern. At the same time, Crippa began to participate regularly in group exhibitions and, notably, the Biennale of Venice.

Later he devoted himself to what the artist called "Collages," cut-out forms that animate static surfaces. Crippa played with the effects of matter on rough, thick surfaces such as wood or bark as well as with plant elements on smooth, shiny metal or on transparent elements. His research naturally led him toward sculpture and from 1956 onward he constructed numerous cut-out, welded metal works of insects and monsters that are in line with the work of Lynn Chadwick. Crippa was interested in movement in space.

In parallel with his painting and sculpture, Roberto Crippa also experimented with graphic work (engravings, lithographs and illustrated books). During the mid-1960s, he moved toward monochrome reliefs, which he most often painted in tones of gray.

The artist died in a plane crash in 1972 in Bresso. He was 50 years old.

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(Biography provided by Galleria d'arte Pirra)

With his stylish and technically innovative furniture, Osvaldo Borsani helped change the face of Italian design in the 1950s and ’60s. His sofas and chairs, featuring deeply upholstered seating and adjustable position settings, have an aura of optimism and efficiency that still seems fresh and lively today.

Born in the commune of Varedo in northern Italy’s Lombardy region, Borsani studied at the Brera Academy in Milan — the same school attended by such luminaries as designer Piero Fornasetti and artist Lucio Fontana — as well as the Polytechnic University of Milan. Borsani first worked for his father’s furniture-making firm, Arredamenti Borsani, an atelier influenced by the more expressive and curvaceous wing of Art Deco design.

By 1953, when, along with his twin brother, Fulgenzio — the pair also created this visionary mid-century villa — Borsani opened the furniture company Tecno, his design sensibilities had evolved toward furnishings with strong, simple forms enhanced by mechanical innovations, as with the P40 adjustable armchair. Borsani would be the firm’s lead designer for 30 years, while fostering work by Vico Magistretti, Carlo De Carli, Robin Day and others.

Similar to Gio Ponti in the earliest years of his career, Borsani first created designs marked by lush and buoyant lines: tables with voluptuous curved legs, sofas with undulating backrests.

But Borsani’s best-known and most novel pieces date from Tecno’s initial furniture lines: the adjustable D70 sofa, which folds open to make a daybed, and the P40 recliner. The latter — now included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum — is an articulated lounger with a back, seat and leg rest that can be moved into 486 different positions. Not only is it extremely comfortable, it is also enduringly chic.

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