He graduated in 1934 as a “maestro” of art, and began working as a ceramist. In 1936, after having worked for a few months as the artistic director of a factory in Perugia, he established himself in the stables of Villa Fabbricotti in Florence and established the Fantoni Ceramic studio. Its production of serial and unique pieces had remarkable success at the Florentine Arts and Crafts Exhibit in 1937, revealing itself in line with the most recent tendencies, so much so that at the beginning of hostilities his production had already received notable artistic and commercial attention in Italy and abroad. After the war years, when Fantoni was involved in the Resistance, in 1946 he began the creative and productive fervor that will allow him to enlarge his company, reaching at the beginning of the next decade the impressive size of over fifty collaborators. Among his employers there were many students who, in ceramics and other fields, would become excellent artisans and even famous artists. In the following decades, especially between ’50 and ’70, the success of his work continued to increase, his unique pieces of sculpture and vascular formations, characterized by a design in step with the contemporary artistic currents, like archaic stylisation inspired by Etruscan models, rendered modern because of their modern handling of material, glazes and colors. For this original spirit of modernity, his works entered in private collections and in the most important museums of the world: in the United States his works can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, the Currier Gallery, the Syracuse Museum. In Britain they are in the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, the City Art Gallery of Manchester, at Royal Scottish Museum of Edinburgh. In Japan they are present at the Museum of Modern Art of Tokio and Kyoto. In Italy they are represented at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, the National Bargello Museum and at the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi. In his long and versatile career, Fantoni has completed works for churches, public and private buildings, schools, cinemas, theatres and ships cementing himself in both figurative and abstract ceramics and various metals, and qualifying himself also in the field of medalism. In 1970 he founded the International School of Ceramic Arts at his laboratory in via Bolognese in Florence, where he continues to work and teach… |
