12 Mar Rising Sun
Cole & Son’s enduring partnership with Italian design atelier Fornasetti is where British handcrafted artistry meets Italian wit and imagination. The latest Senza Tempo Vol II collection revisits a theme that was close to Piero Fornasetti’s heart: he often featured the sun in his illustrations, always with a benign-looking face at its centre. ‘Soli’ (above right) is one of the new designs, incorporating rows of different suns, with a wide colour palette including the rich green and gold pictured, while ‘Soli e Nuvole’ (above left) expands upon a detail of a larger design that Fornasetti drew of an imagined scene in Capri.
Fornasetti’s work was often highly personal, inspired by his life and travels, and Senza Tempo Vol II draws on those experiences, too. ‘Conchiglie’ is a geometric repeat of shell-laden boxes and diamonds (Fornasetti had a shell-covered dining room in his Lake Como villa, in homage to a renaissance grotto), while ‘Ramo di Ortensia’ features a hydrangea design that references the abundant shrubs that grow in the garden of the Fornasetti house in Milan.
Cole & Son is hosting an event in the showroom to launch the collection (Tuesday 14 March, 4pm); while the brand’s creative and managing director Marie Karlsson is also taking part in London Design Week 2023’s main-stage talks programme, Conversations in Design: hear her talk about how art has played a crucial role in shaping design, alongside textile designer Sarah Campbell and decorative artist Tabby Riley (Wednesday 15 March, 11.30am; book a ticket here).