From the Atelier of Fornasetti

Delve into Liberty’s 150-year legacy as stylist, editor and creative director, Leith Clark curates a selection of 150 pieces from Liberty’s past and present, each with their own unique story to tell. As part of this milestone collaboration, Leith visited a selection of Liberty’s creative founders – old and new – at their studios and workshops across the globe, to discover the stories and craft that makes each unique.

The atelier where imagination meets design. There’s no better summary of the artisanal originality that continues to emerge from the house of Fornasetti, long after it was first founded in 1940. Once led by artistic visionary Piero Fornasetti, it is now his son, Barnaba, that serves as steward, steering its legacy into a new generation of design excellence. Under his supervision, the atelier remains steadfast in its original philosophy: to elevate even the most ordinary of objects into desirable works of art. Playful in their aesthetic, authentic in their craftsmanship, Fornasetti objects, furniture and decorations are imbued with a sense of illusion and imagination, conversation pieces bound to inspire. By today’s standards, that is certainly a rare achievement.

A rarity perhaps trumped only by an invite to peek behind the scenes and witness, first hand, the Fornasetti fantasy for yourself. So when Leith was offered a chance to sit down with Barnaba, at the Fornasetti house he inherited from his father and since reimagined in his own vision, she leapt at the opportunity. Hear from the pair as they discuss house renovations, the craft behind the collections and Piero’s lasting influence…

Can you talk about the painting that your dad did in your kitchen? And your choice to make the butterflies take over the kitchen?

They came from a decoration by my father that was only a butterfly, or butterflies with pieces of newspaper and objects mixed together. When I designed the kitchen, I decided to add butterflies with articles from different magazines. In the kitchen, there is also a painting with watercolour and wood that my father made when he was very young. It was one of the first paintings he ever did. It was of a lady selling boxes of butterflies. That painting was made in a period when my father was very poor, and he didn’t have a canvas, so he painted on a piece of wood he stuck together. So I decided to dedicate the kitchen to him. The idea is that the news, it flies like butterflies.

Until the internet came and ruined it. And what was the experience like making this house your own, renovating it in your way?

I received this house as inheritance and when the manufacturing moved to a different building, I decided to maintain the archive and create a creative side of the company. And part of that was revisiting the decoration. Some things remain the same, as my father left them, but I now have many more Fornasetti pieces in here than my father did. In his time, my father’s house was designed with very few objects. No new pieces of furniture, only antique. I think of it as a house always reinventing, always living and changing with the moment and my state of mind.

It’s beautiful that you brought more Fornasetti into the house, to live with it.

I also brought objects that I made. The desk, for example, was my design. The lamps. There are many of my own objects here.

Did you create objects with your father while he was still alive?

A few. The first collaboration was when I was a child, less than ten years old. We were in the garden and I went to my father with a hortensia leaf with oil paints on it. So he made a tray with the same subject. And after, the second collaboration was a car. We were looking at the windows of the shop in Via Brera from the other side of the street and in the windows was a Venetian blind, decorated with the Venetian Procuratie at the church of Piazza San Marco, which is an iconic Fornasetti decor. And there was a car parked in front. So we thought: why not put that same decoration on a car? So we did it – thinking it’s not for commercial gain, it’s something to do for fun.

That’s amazing. What was it like changing some of the rooms you knew as a child? The two rooms I wonder about are your room you slept in as a child, and your parents bedroom, which are now guest rooms. How did you come to that decision and what was that like?

When I was very young in the beginning of the 60s, around 11 or 12, my idea when I grew up was to be a designer of cars. So, I cut images of cars from magazines and I put many, many cars as a decoration on the walls. They were totally covered in cars. After a few years when I started to become a music fan, it was a time when the Beat generation started and so I covered the walls in faces of music stars.

Do you have a favourite Fornasetti piece or design?

Not really. It depends on the day, it depends on the period. Basically, I like the last thing we’ve made.

Always looking ahead. Dreaming more things up.

Of course.

Can you tell me more about the process of creating your pieces?

We start from a drawing. A drawing is photographed and made into transparencies in the same shape and dimensions as the final object, and that is then used to make a silk screen. The silk screen is used to print decal paper, sprayed with a transparent varnish. After a few minutes, this paper can be put in the water and it creates a film that you can transfer onto an object. It means you can transfer onto a curved object, as well as a flat object. If the object has a flat surface, you can print directly with the silk screen, but this process lets you print onto surfaces like trays, chairs or a piece of furniture. After that you have to spray two or three times to obtain the perfect surface and achieve the perfect watercolour design.

And do the painters have certain training that you do here yourself?

Yes. They learn here. When we find a new painter, they sometimes need time to learn to paint for us. It’s not the same as painting a canvas, the surface isn’t white. They need to learn how to use watercolours on these kinds of surfaces and how to copy the colours from the designs in the archive.

And all of the colours are still true to the paintings in the archive?

It depends. Sometimes we make amends to make things more attractive to a modern client. In many cases, the clients want variations in the shape or decoration of an item. We have lots of monkeys, but sometimes they ask for a different animal,for example.

The porcelain is another similar process, but after the transfer of the decal on the surface on the porcelain, we place the items in the oven for firing. And when we use gold paint, that needs to be fired, too.

For how long?

It depends. Often we place the porcelain in the oven in the afternoon, and open the oven again in the morning.

And the gold paint has to go in the oven to become gold?

Yes, it’s brown when you paint it. Although they never go in the oven together. You cannot fire the decal with the gold, otherwise it's a mess. They have different requirements.

What is your relationship now with your father? When you’re making decisions, do you think about what he would think?

Sometimes I dream of him. And in my dreams, most of the time, he’s very happy with my work.