Gio Ponti - Design Masters New York Tuesday, December 17, 2013 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from Cassina, Italy
    Thence by descent

  • Literature

    Paolo Piccione, Gio Ponti: le navi: il progetto degli interni navali, 1948-1953, Viareggio, Italy, 2007, p. 148, figs. 180-81

  • Catalogue Essay

    The present sofa and armchairs were designed by Gio Ponti for the ocean liner Andrea Doria, which launched in 1951 and tragically sank in 1956. While a small group of examples were fabricated by Cassina, the sofa and chairs were never put into actual production or retailed by the company.

  • Artist Biography

    Gio Ponti

    Italian • 1891 - 1979

    Among the most prolific talents to grace twentieth-century design, Gio Ponti defied categorization. Though trained as an architect, he made major contributions to the decorative arts, designing in such disparate materials as ceramics, glass, wood and metal. A gale force of interdisciplinary creativity, Ponti embraced new materials like plastic and aluminum but employed traditional materials such as marble and wood in original, unconventional ways.

    In the industrial realm, he designed buildings, cars, machinery and appliances — notably, the La Cornuta espresso machine for La Pavoni — and founded the ADI (Industrial Designer Association). Among the most special works by Gio Ponti are those that he made in collaboration with master craftsmen such as the cabinetmaker Giordano Chiesa, the illustrator Piero Fornasetti and the enamellist Paolo de Poli.

    View More Works

442

Important sofa

circa 1950
Fabric, oak, brass.
30 1/8 x 52 1/2 x 30 1/4 in. (76.5 x 133.4 x 76.8 cm)
Produced by Cassina, Italy. Together with a certificate of authenticity from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for $75,000

Contact Specialist
Meaghan Roddy
Head of Sale, New York
mroddy@phillips.com
+ 1 212 940 1266

Design Masters

New York 17 December 2013 6pm