Carlo Zen (1851 – 1918) Italian Cabinetmaker, the Father of Piero Zen.
Biography
From cl1880, Zen directed the most crucial furniture workshop in Milan. He was active in the stile floreale, continued after the 1902 Turin ‘Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna’ to be known for his Art Nouveau and Symbolist motifs. He was not a designer himself but instead a factory owner and manager. From 1898, his firm was associated with Haas of Vienna, whose designers included Otto Eckmann.
Carlo Zen maintained his prominence by manufacturing furniture based on art nouveau and symbolist motifs that appealed primarily to feminine tastes. Using inlays of mother-of-pearl, his artisans’ elegant, asymmetrical patterns became more geometric towards 1910 and showed the simplification typical of German and Austrian forms.
Zen, who understood how the Stile Floreale could be influenced and nurtured by foreign designs, remained one of the more skilful Italian manufacturers of the twentieth century.
Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing. https://amzn.to/3ElmSlL
Weisberg, G. P. (1988). Stile Floreal: the cult of nature in Italian design. United States: Wolfsonian Foundation.
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