45 years after winning in Florence the first prize in the National Jewellery Competition of 1964, Fausto Maria Franchi returns to the Tuscan city with a monographic show at the Museo degli Argenti in the Pitti Palace. Already in 2007 the Roman goldsmith had linked his name to the Museo degli Argenti when he donated the Secret Triangles ring, the Elective Affinities brooch and the Lost Hours ring, works that have become part of the permanent Contemporary Jewellery collection of the museum.
Now this exhibition, developed following the brilliant initiative of the Director of the Museo degli Argenti Ornella Casazza, proposes a selection of around 60 jewels created from the 1960s up to the present. Brooches, rings, pendants and bracelets, designed with sublime technique by overlaying three layers of the same shape but of different colour, as in the Elective Affinities brooch: yellow gold, silver and burnished silver. Layers that adhere to each other and each take part in the colours and forms of the others through piercing and cuts in the surfaces, masterfully articulated and dynamically open towards the observer, captured in this sophisticated play of multiple viewpoints.
Frequently the jewels of Fausto Maria Franchi have jagged and pseudo-organic edges that appear to float in a “vital fluid like amoebas conceived by Mirò”. At times the precious creations are enhanced by enamels in acid, fluorescent colours “that recall the chromatic ranges and movements featured in certain periods by certain designers – Emilio Pucci, to name but one” as Cristina Acidini, the Superintendent of the Polo Museale Fiorentino puts it.
Also on display will be a selection of around 30 “Bianchi” articles of silverware, moulded into the shape of irregular vases, ornamental dishes, candelabra, teapots and jugs, works with smooth or hammered surfaces in an alternation of varying shininess, precious artefacts that – through profound and vibrant sensations – hark back to the secret and intimate patterns of nature.