London gallery Estorick Collection is paying tribute to Franco Grignani with a summer exhibition dedicated to the Italian graphic designer. ‘Franco Grignani: Art as Design 1950-1990’ chronicles the work of Grignani and includes both graphics created for international brands and his more artistic output. It’s the second show of his work in the city this year following an exhibition at M&L Fine Art, which focused on his optical paintings.
Grignani is best known for his streamlined design for the Woolmark logo (a black and white line work representing a ball of yarn), which he created in 1964. In the late 1930s, he set up a graphic design studio in Milan and created logos, advertising campaigns and visuals for brands such as Pirelli and Penguin. His experimental graphics are infused with geometric abstraction, the result of his architecture and mathematics background.
La Frattura Del Rumore, by Franco Grignani, 1990.
This linear style is also at the core of Grignani’s paintings, produced in parallel with his graphics career. Inspired by his experiences with the futurists and featuring early op art examples, the tableaux are produced in an almost exclusively monochromatic black and white palette on photographic card.
The Estorick show presents over 130 pieces, including paintings and works on paper, and does a poignant job at highlighting Grignani’s humour as a painter and a designer, as well as his penchant for formulae and optical deception.
Dissociazione dal Bordo, 1969.
Grignani’s advertisements for Dompé Farmaceutici’s Cardioritmon medicine from the 1950s.
Advertisement for Pirelli, 1967.
His works feature early examples of op art, the tableaux produced in an almost exclusively monochromatic black and white palette on photographic card
Operativo Numerico (31/B), 1965.
INFORMATION
‘Franco Grignani: Art as Design 1950-1990’ is on view until 10 September. For more information, visit the Estorick Collection website
ADDRESS
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
39a Canonbury Square
London N1 2AN
-
Why Hodakova is the label that has everyone in fashion talkingPart of a new monthly series, ‘Uprising’ – highlighting fashion’s new vanguard of designers – Orla Brennan meets LVMH Prize winner Ellen Hodakova Larsson, whose intriguing Stockholm-based label will be 2025’s one to watch
-
Dhammada Collective brings participatory design and cultural preservation to the fore in IndiaDhammada Collective, in India's Bhopal, combines participatory design with cultural preservation to foster sustainable growth
-
Year in review: top 10 design stories of 2024Wallpaper* magazine's 10 most-read design stories of 2024 whisk us from fun Ikea pieces to the man who designed the Paris Olympics, and 50 years of the Rubik's Cube
-
Inside the distorted world of artist George RouyFrequently drawing comparisons with Francis Bacon, painter George Rouy is gaining peer points for his use of classic techniques to distort the human form
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
-
Looking forward to Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary partyFrom 9-12 May 2025, Tate Modern, one of London’s most adored art museums, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a lively weekend of festivities
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA week in the world of Wallpaper*. Here's how our editors have been entertaining themselves in the run up to Christmas
-
Love, melancholy and domesticity: Anna Calleja is a painter to watchAnna Calleja explores everyday themes in her exhibition, ‘One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night’, at Sim Smith, London
-
Ndayé Kouagou speaks the language of the chaotic social media influencer in LondonNdayé Kouagou celebrates meandering incoherence with an exhibition, ‘A Message for Everybody’, at Gathering in London
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
