Fornasetti meets classics at Palazzo Altemps

Twenty years after its inauguration in 1997, the Museum of Palazzo Altemps in Rome in cooperation with La Triennale di Milano hosts the exhibition “Citazioni Pratiche. Fornasetti a Palazzo Altemps” (Pratical Quotes. Fornasetti at Palazzo Altemps). Featuring a broad selection of designs, drawings, furniture and home décor from the 1930s onwards, the exhibition celebrates the life and work of Italian painter, designer, and craftsman Pietro Fornasetti (1913-1988) and argues for the fertile imagination and singular surrealist inventiveness of his milanese Atelier.

On display at the beautiful venue of Palazzo Altemps are over 800 pieces designed by Pietro Fornasetti and his son, Barnaba (1950), who is the Art Director of the renowned atelier in Milan, where he reinterprets his father’s charming and whimsical art. In the exhibition curated by Silvana Annicchiarico, Director of the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, and Alessandra Capodiferro, Head of the Museo di Palazzo Altemps, Fornasetti timeless work interacts with the museum’s permanent collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, creating a dialogue both irreverent and cultured between ancient, modern, and contemporary. A playful invitation to imagine and dream, Fornasetti’s designs aren’t just decorative objects, but powerful expressions of a theatrical, magical world.