Tom Dixon for Salviati

TOM DIXON (Tunisia, 1959) for SALVIATI.
Murano glass in three colors (white, red and yellow/gold).
Made up of three interchangeable and completely separable pieces.
Signed on each of the pieces.
Measurements: 30 x 28 x 28 cm.
A self-taught designer in London in the eighties and head of the Habitat and Artek brands, Tom Dixon has combined creativity with commercial vision throughout his entire career. Born in Tunisia and raised in London, Dixon entered the field of design accidentally when he found himself with free time while recovering from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. In the previous years he had started and abandoned artistic studies, so he lacked technical training, but he acquired it for himself when he discovered welding while he was trying to fix his motorcycle by himself. With this new knowledge he began to make post-punk style designs, in the early eighties, mainly pieces of furniture built by welding, such as the “S Chair” or the “Pylon Chair”. He will soon open his own store, “Space,” and begin manufacturing his designs through the company Eurolounge. His success will be such that he will be hired by the Finnish firm Habitat as main designer, and from his new position he will reissue designs by Verner Panton, Ettore Sottsas and Robin Day, in addition to editing new creations by designers such as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Ineke Hans and Marc Newson. In parallel, he will begin projects as an independent designer and as creative director of Artek, the Finnish design firm founded by Alvar Aalto in the 1930s. Currently, his creations are part of important collections such as the Design Museum in London or the MoMA in New York, among others.
Antonio Salviati was an Italian lawyer and businessman, founder of a high-class Venetian glass factory, responsible for the resurrection of the Venetian glass industry in the 19th century. In 1866 he partnered with Austen Henry Layard, the archaeologist who discovered Nineveh, with whom he formed the company Società Salviati e Compagni, based in Venice. The Salviati company obtained several important commissions, such as the mosaics of the background of the main altar of Westminster Abbey (1867), the ceiling of the Albert Memorial Chapel of Windsor Castle and the Palatine Chapel of Aachen (1870-1875). In 1876 he separated from his English partners and founded a new company that, in addition to mosaics, manufactured ornamental and table glass, in a high-quality Renaissance style. He also made pieces in imitation of ancient Roman glass. His company attended all the universal exhibitions at the end of the 19th century.