Gabriella Crespi Brass Pill Cigarette Card Box Italian, 1970s

Name: Gabriella Crespi Brass Pill Cigarette Card Box Italian, 1970s
Brand: Gabriella Crespi
Rating: 5 (14 reviews)

$2,250

£1,713.07

€2,049.20

CA$3,207.61

A$3,265.51

CHF 1,890.64

MX$43,114.21

NOK 21,133.51

SEK 22,551.13

DKK 15,370.53

About the Item

Gabriella Crespi brass pill cigarette card box Italian, 1970s Measures: 4.4 inches wide on each side 0.3 inches deep Born in 1922, Gabriella Crespi studies architecture at the Politecnico in Milan, where her work is permeated by her perspective on Le Corbusier’s and Frank Lloyd Wright’s design experience. Since the 1950s, she has dedicated herself to the creation and worldwide circulation of furniture and other objects that balance design and sculptural abstraction. Thanks to her always original conception and ideas, to the articulated forms that meet the needs of contemporary design, and to the amazing ability to transform objects by adding openings, closings, and changes in function, Gabriella Crespi has conquered the international scene in a short time. Her creative journey still incisively inspires the expressive creativity of the current generation of artists. Crespi began her career as a designer in the 1950s with her first production of objects, the "Small Lune Collection", steel moon-shaped sculptures, in which the stylistic influences of time converge and are transformed. In the beginning of the 1960s, she established an enthusiastic creative relationship with Maison Dior, especially in the context of home and table accessories and, from the 1970s, with furniture. In 1968, the prototype of her first "Plurimo" was exhibited in Dallas a representative of Italian design of the era. In 1970, Gabriella’s daughter, Elisabetta, began her collaboration in the famous "Plurimi" series, the name of which is a tribute to Emilio Vedova. These "metamorphic" furniture pieces ("Magic Cube," "2000," "Dama," "Scultura") are a play on volumes and evolutionary possibilities of the same form that change in space, in perpetual dialogue with both the environment and light. That same year, "Kaleidoscopes" and "Lune", the leitmotif of Gabriella Crespi’s poetic philosophy, were born: sculptures and lamps that introduced a creative intervention in design. Between 1970 and 1974, she created her most significant lost-wax works, including the sculpture “My Soul” (1974), the "Animali" collections, (bronze sculptures with a fairy-like feel that reveal Gabriella’s relentless attention to the natural world), "Jewels," and "Gocce Oro:" free flowing sculptures conceived through the ancient and precious process of lost-wax casting. Between 1972 and 1975, she designed the "Quick Change Sofa", the "Z" line ( "Z Bar," "Z Desk" ) and the "Rising Sun" bamboo collection, material much loved by Crespi that, as she says, "unites strength and flexibility." The famous "Fungo" lamps (1973) are part of this collection. In 1976, the new "Plurimi" ("Ellisse" and "Cubo Tondo"), the "Sheherazade" collection, and the "Stone Sculptures" took shape. Between 1978 and 1980, the bookcase-block "Menhir" (1978), the "Yang Yin" collection (1979), and the two sculpted tables "Ara" (1979) and "Lunante" (1980) were created. In 1980, Gabriella Crespi designed three new "Plurimi" ("Blow Up," "Eclipse," "Sit & Sip") and in 1982 she presented "Punto ’83," her last "Plurimo" and a unique piece (one prototype was realized in the same year), at Milan’s Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica as part of the exhibition "I Plurimi di Gabriella Crespi" introduced by Vanni Scheiwiller. In 1985 she released the last interviews on her work as a designer before setting out on a new life completely devoted to the spiritual quest, a path she follows to this today. Same era as: Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouve, Pierre Pauline, Serge Mouille, Jacques Adnet, Jean Royere, Roger Tallon, Michel Buffet, Pierre Guariche, Le Corbusier, Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Carlo Mollino, Guglielmo Ulrich, Jo Colombo, Ettore Sottsass, Marco Zanuso, Osvaldo Borsani, Ico Parisi, Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Florence Knoll, Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, Paul Mccobb, Edward Wormley, Vladimir Kagan, Milo Baughman, Maison Bagues, Maison Jansen, Other lighting companies: Maison Lunel, Stilnovo, Fontana Arte, Kalmar, Louis Poulsen, Arredoluce, Vistosi, Barovier and Toso, Arteluce, Artemide, Robert Mathieu, Vistosi, Max Ingrand,

Creator:
Gabriella Crespi (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 4.4 in (11.18 cm)Width: 4.4 in (11.18 cm)Depth: 0.3 in (7.62 mm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Brass
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
Late 20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1972
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. some scratches to the bottom and minor oxidation of the brass in 2 small areas shown on photos.
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU189334991723

Shop All Gabriella Crespi

Gabriella Crespi

Bronze discs that open up like clamshells for storage and fold back in to become side tables. Sleek cubes barely suspended off the ground that transform into full-size dining tables. Clean-lined boxes that contain multilevel shelving. Looking at the work of Italian designer Gabriella Crespi, born in 1922 and who still produced furniture in her Milan studio until her death in 2017, it’s hard to believe that many of these highly functional pieces — modernist Rubik’s Cubes of materials, colors and ergonomics — were created decades ago.

Among her best-known creations, the bronze Ellisse table, 1976, and her bronze-and-lacquer Yang-Yin bar, 1979, encapsulate a designer who had a strong dualism in her vision, mixing humble and precious materials, for instance, or creating geometric shapes that were softened by sensual surfaces.

Crespi began studying architecture in 1944 at the Politecnico, in Milan, where she was among just a handful of women, and became profoundly influenced by the work of Charles-Édouard "Le Corbusier" Jeanneret and Frank Lloyd Wright. After getting married and having children, she launched her own collections, from jewelry to furniture, and soon gained a loyal following, with design houses such as Maison Dior snapping pieces up for their own lines.

She began work on her most iconic collection, Plurimi, in the late 1960s, and the series — including her Dama table, which plays on the themes of volume, light and adaptability that Crespi has explored throughout her career — flourished through the 1970s and early ’80s. Then there is her famed Z desk, from a mid-1970s series, which manages to be both stylish and humorous, looking like it’s ready to leap off the floor at any moment. Well-born and beautiful, Crespi garnered attention among the jet set. She was a muse to Valentino, and her pieces appeared in the homes of Princess Grace of Monaco, the Shah of Iran and Greek shipping magnate George Livanos.

In 1987, with her children now adults, the designer surprised everyone when she moved to the foot of the Indian Himalayas to study with the guru Sri Muniraj. This turned into a 20-year self-imposed exile that, if anything, made her pieces even more sought-after by collectors.

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