Gaetano Pesce b. 1939
Gaetano Pesce is one of the most progressive and visionary designers of the 20th century, building a diverse and avant-garde body of work from principles of anti-rationalism, a concern for the individual and the “human touch,” and an experimental approach to materials and means of production.
Pesce was born in 1939 in La Spezia, Italy and grew up between Florence and Padua. His father, a naval officer, died in WWII, leaving his mother to raise him and his brother alone, resulting in a difficult childhood. From a young age, Pesce exhibited a rebellious spirit, joining Gruppo N, a radical artist collective when he was still a teenager. In 1959, Pesce enrolled at the University of Venice to study architecture, because he considered it to be the most complex and challenging of the arts. He found the curriculum tedious and stifling with its insistence on historicism and the hyper-rationalist, mechanical, and abstracted ideals of modernist architecture, which he thought disregarded the individual and attempted to standardize the human spirit. He found his suspicions of modernism confirmed when he visited Dessau, Germany, the birthplace of the Bauhaus, to find that the first Bauhaus building, where Paul Klee and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe taught, had been turned into a coal room.
Auction Results Gaetano Pesce
Gaetano Pesce
Sansone table
estimate: $30,000–40,000
result: $36,000
Gaetano Pesce
set of lamps from Il Cestello, Florence
estimate: $30,000–40,000
result: $36,000
Gaetano Pesce
conference table for the American Ballet Theatre
estimate: $30,000–40,000
result: $33,800
Gaetano Pesce
Dalila chair
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $25,200
Gaetano Pesce
Golgotha chair
estimate: $20,000–30,000
result: $25,000
Gaetano Pesce
Golgotha chair
estimate: $20,000–30,000
result: $23,750
Gaetano Pesce
prototype dining table
estimate: $5,000–7,000
result: $18,750
Gaetano Pesce
Nobody's Perfect tables, set of two
estimate: $1,000–1,500
result: $16,250
Gaetano Pesce
Dalila 3 armchair
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $16,250
Gaetano Pesce
Nobody's Perfect cabinet
estimate: $15,000–20,000
result: $12,500
Gaetano Pesce
UP3 chair
estimate: $3,000–5,000
result: $11,400
Gaetano Pesce
ceiling light
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $11,250
Gaetano Pesce
conference table from TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
estimate: $10,000–15,000
result: $10,200
Gaetano Pesce
vase
estimate: $1,500–2,000
result: $10,000
Gaetano Pesce
Sansone II
estimate: $9,000–12,000
result: $9,440
Gaetano Pesce
set of lamps from Il Cestello, Florence
estimate: $5,000–7,000
result: $9,375
Gaetano Pesce
Osso lamp
estimate: $10,000–15,000
result: $8,890
Gaetano Pesce
Sansone II coffee table
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $8,750
Gaetano Pesce
543 Broadway chairs, set of six
estimate: $2,000–3,000
result: $8,750
Gaetano Pesce
conference table from TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $8,125
Gaetano Pesce
Sansone II dining table
estimate: $6,000–8,000
result: $8,125
Gaetano Pesce
conference table from TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
estimate: $4,000–6,000
result: $8,125
Gaetano Pesce
set of twelve 543 Broadway chairs from TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
estimate: $7,000–9,000
result: $7,800
Gaetano Pesce
UP7 (Il Piede)
estimate: $2,000–3,000
result: $7,800