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| Antiques |
Italian Renaissance
Marisa Bartolucci
07/01/2004
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Gio Ponti may be the most influential designer you have never heard of—but
that is certain to change soon. Ponti, who died in 1979 at the age of 88, is
considered by the cognoscenti to be the godfather of Italian designers. But he
remains less well known than his French contemporaries, despite his activities
as both a prolific inventor and as a propagandist. He not only worked with
lucidity and verve in the fields of architecture, ceramics, textiles, furniture,
industrial design, set design and painting, but he also founded and edited the
highly influential architecture and design magazine, Domus.
 | | GIO PONTI'S 1950 custom designed executive desk sold for $106,000 in March, far
higher than the preauction estimate of $45,000. |
Ponti’s stature
in the design community makes it hard to understand why he remains
underappreciated. “The mid-century French designers are the ones who have gotten
all the attention,” says Richard Wright of the Chicago-based Wright auction
house, which specializes in modern design. “French dealers have been better at
marketing their material than the Italians.” Cristina Grajales, a private dealer
in New York, agrees. “It’s a matter of education. Clients get caught up in fads.
You have to remind them who is important. For so long Gio Ponti has been
underappreciated. His work has such a playful spirit and always a graceful line.
It’s time people start paying attention to him again.”
Judging from the
prices his works commanded at an off-season auction at Wright in March, Ponti
might not be recondite for much longer. A 1950 custom-designed walnut desk with
suspended cabinet drawers featuring Ponti’s signature diamond-shaped detailing
sold for $106,000, a dizzying sum considering the estimate ranged from $35,000
to $45,000. Equally vertiginous was the $50,000 hammer price for a 90-piece set
of sterling silver Diamond flatware created in 1958 for Reed & Barton. The
estimate was $9,000 to $12,000. The hammer also went down on a 1953 upholstered,
V-shaped walnut bench with tapered brass feet, which Ponti designed for
Altamira, at $21,000. The estimate had been $5,000 to $7,000.
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