Piero Fornasetti lived most of his life in Milan. A talented and artistic young man, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (where he was later expelled for insubordination) and the Castello Sforzesco school. During World War II, he was expelled again—this time from Italy altogether—and went on to develop as an artist in Switzerland from 1943 to 1946. He used an educational grant to travel to Africa—a trip that opened up the world and benefitted him more than any schooling could. In 1959, he received the Neiman-Marcus Award for distinguished service in the field of fashion.

When he returned to Milan from Africa, one of his first projects was the painting of silk scarves, which caught the attention of Italian architect Gio Ponti. It was the beginning of a productive partnership as Fornasetti and Ponti collaborated on numerous projects in the following years. Beginning in the early 1950s, they created a series of desks and bureaus that combined Ponti’s angular forms with Fornasetti’s decorative motifs—arrangements of flowers or architectural imagery. The two worked together on an interior decoration project at the San Remo Casino, but their greatest collaboration has been lost: the lounges and restaurants of the luxury ocean liner Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956.

Fornasetti’s work was influenced by Greek and Roman architecture, surrealism, and metaphysical art. His signature motif was the face of opera singer Lina Cavalieri, whom he discovered while leafing through a 19th century magazine. Fornasetti used Cavalieri’s visage to decorate his Tema e Variazioni (Theme and Variation) series of plates, which numbered more than 350. He mused, “What inspired me to create more than 350 variations on the face of a woman? I don’t know. I started making them and never stopped.”