Wednesday, September 28, 2016

London: Breakfast at Designers Guild - John Derian Picture Book – Book Signing



London: Breakfast at Designers Guild - John Derian Picture Book – Book Signing.  The last stop of John Derian’s Picture Book (Artisan) European book signing event was held at a breakfast during London Design Festival week, at Designers Guild. The John Derian Picture Book takes center stage in the window of Designers Guild flagship King’s Road store, which also carries a large selection of his decoupage household objects.


 

Designers Guild - John Derian Picture Book

John Derian is the legendary decoupage artist and curator of antiques who is based in New York City’s East Village, where in 1989 he started his eponymous company. 

 
 John Derian Picture Book

The John Derian Picture Book, (Artisan) encases the most iconic; most quintessential and delightful images that are featured in his covetable range of objects.  The book is culled from the thousands of images that have appeared in his biannual collections, an astoundingly beautiful assortment of more than 400 full-bleed images in their original form. From intensely colored flowers and birds to curious portraits, hand-drawn letters, and breathtaking landscapes.

 

Designers Guild - John Derian

John Derian transforms printed images from the past from illustrations, etchings, chromolithographs, rare reproductions and other printed matter to create a new visual language beloved by collectors and the curious alike.

 
John Derian and Tricia Guild


Photograph by Stephen Kent Johnson


“John Derian’s deep curiosity about life speaks to our own, whereby everything that’s sold by him is rich in fragments of the past, of a history that evokes, well, what?”

Anna Wintour writes in the forward to the luxurious extra-large John Derian Picture Book. Pouring over the book is like following the artist into a dusty corner of an antique bookstore and uncovering a treasure.





Designers Guild – Flowers

Florist Juliet Glaves home grows her flowers in the English countryside

Photograph by Stephen Kent Johnson



“I have always been inspired by the natural world, and the beauty and charm of fine-etched and hand-colored images I discovered became a way for me to express that interest. In 1989, I began using these images to create decoupage (the art of decorating objects with paper cutouts), and quickly found that it was a way for me to combine my childhood love of making things with imagery that speaks to my aesthetic sensibility.”
John Derian

 
 


 Cool Hunting Video Presents: John Derian
 




The Talk
 John Derian and Tricia Guild 

 
Tricia Guild is the founder and Creative Director of Designers Guild, she is known for her bold and original fabric and wallpaper collections and her work as a designer and manufacturer on a range of home interior products.
Above. Tricia Guild - Colour Deconstructed Quadrille Publishing Ltd.


 


Designers Guild - John Derian Picture Book
Book Signing

 
Breakfast
Blueberry Compote Yoghurt and Crunchy Pistachio Muesli
Peach and Raspberry Fruit Salad
Apple and Elderflower Juice
Viennoiserie


 

 Jeannette Farrier
with her designed Kantha bedspreads - quilts of recycled stitched cotton rags


 



Monday, September 19, 2016

Venezia: Le stanze del Vetro - Paolo Venini and his Furnace – Opening and Lunch



Photograph courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro – Paolo Venini – the Incisi Series – 1956-57

Venezia: Le stanze del Vetro - Paolo Venini and his Furnace – Opening and Lunch. At Le Stanze del Vetro,  the autumn exhibition Paolo Venini and his Furnace, until January 8, is curated by Marino Barovier. 300 works recount his creative vision as well as those of artists who collaborated with him over the years such as Tyra Lundgren, Gio Ponti, Riccardo Licata, Ken Scott, Massimo Vignelli and Tobia Scarpa.



 

 Luca Massimo Barbero and Marino Barovier

 
Le stanze del Vetro - Paolo Venini and his Furnace

Milanese by birth and Muranese by choice, Paolo Venini (1895-1959) was a great protagonist of twentieth century glass, and made a decisive contribution to keeping it alive with his enthusiastic works over the course of forty years, in his important role as cultured, enlightened and creative entrepreneur. He founded the V.S.M. Venini & C. glassworks together with Napoleone Martinuzzi and Francesco Zecchin in 1925. He later became Chairman of the company and worked tirelessly as guiding mentor and manager of the firm until his death in 1959. Paolo Venini, a skilled businessman attentive to both contemporary artistic trends and the needs of the international market, was also the creator of a new series of glass, using his own technical department and contributing to the list of glass works that still featured the intervention of several designers.

 
The grandchildren - Laura and Paolo Diaz de Santillana

 
  Paolo Venini – The Diamate Series – 1934-36

 
Paolo Venini – The Murrine “a Dame” Series – 1953

The revival oft he murrine technique gradually led to new types of glass patterned, mostly opaque - ‘a dame’, mezzaluna, ‘a puntini’ – using striking color combinations.

 
Paolo Venini Mosaico Multicolore – 1954

Characterized by a novel interplay of delicate shades of multi-colored glass threads

 
Le stanze del Vetro - Paolo Venini and his Furnace

Drawing and studies for nine types of bottles with notes in Gio Ponti’s hand – graphite, pen and colored pencil on paper – c. 1950

 
Gio Ponti – Bottles – 1946-50

An artist with whom Paolo Venini worked fruitfully after WWII was the architect Gio Ponti (1891-1979), who created original bottles, table services and lamps.


Paolo Venini – Mosaico Zanfirico Series – 1954

Decorated with a white lace-like pattern that stands out against the colored surface




Pasquale Gagliardi

 

David Landau by a photograph of Paolo Venini

 

 Paolo Zevi and Marie-Rose Kahane
 

Silvia Damiani





Tobia Scarpa - The Battuti Series – 1959-60

Irregular satin finishes obtained in the cold shop were produced in delicate colors, the shapes of which show traces of Nordic influences

 


Tobia Scarpa – The Occhi Series – 1959-60

The Occhi – eyes - represent an interpretation of certain glass pieces designed by his father Carlo before the war.  They are characterized by the use of original murrine with a colorless transparent nucleus and rim in colored  glass or glass paste with vivid colors. 

 
Ken Scott – Pesci – 1951

Fashion designer Ken Scott designed a gaily colored series of fish produced for Macy’s. The series are characterized by brilliant novel polychrome patterns obtained with the use of the cased-glass technique and enriched with decoro fenico, applied threads. etc.
 

 

Documentary - Gianluigi Calderone – Paolo Venini – L’Uomo di Notte

Through the use of anecdotes and first-hand accounts, the documentary describes the extraordinary attention of the Venini Company to the colors and not just to the shapes of the glass pieces, to the extent that, in his search for new mixtures, Venini came close to loosing his eyesight.

 
Film director - Gianluigi Calderone

 
Tyra Lundgren – The Pesci Series – 1936-38

The Swedish ceramic artist, used models similar to those already executed in ceramics, employing techniques then in use in the furnace, such as corroso, iridised or sommerso glass.

 
The Lunch
 
On a bright sunny September day, next to Le Stanze del Vetro and The Fondazione Giorgio Cini, lunch was served on the riva of the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore where the sailing boats are docked.

 
The Aperitivo

 
Acquolina’s Marika Seguso catered lunch


Lunch


 
Curator - Marino Barovier