Decorative Sunday
Graphic designer and decorative-paper collector Hans Schmoller's article "An Italian Paperchase," published in Matrix 5, Winter 1985, pp. 1-14, celebrates the decorated papers of three Italian women, Flavia Farina Cini, Eleonora dei Conti Gallo, and Pia Vitali.
The patterns shown here were made from woodblocks with a paste made chiefly from starch and dextrin, colored with a wide variety of pigments. The first image is the emblem of the workshop, Laboratorio Italiano Manifattura Artistica (L. I. M. A.), a play on the village where it is located, Lima, Italy. It is also known as Laboratorio Marcelliano after nearby San Marcello. This is the workshop where Flavia Farina Cini spent her career.
Hans Schmoller (1916-1985) was the highly influential head of typography and design at Penguin Books for almost 30 years (1949-1976). He and his wife Tanya (1918-2016), who was the personal assistant to Allen Lane, the co-founder of Penguin Books, were both avid collectors of decorated papers from around the world. Hans Schmoller was able to collect enough original samples of work by Farina Cini and Conti Gallo to include in the 718 copies of Matrix 5, printed at John and Rosalind Randle’s Whittington Press in Risbury, Herefordshire, England.
The work of Pia Vitali could only be shown in a b&w photograph, along with other photographs of work by Farina Cini and and Conti Gallo. Our copy is another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.
View more posts on decorative papers.
View more Decorative Sunday posts.
