Quarti Eugenio
(Villa D’Almè -BG 1867 – Milano
1929).
Italian
cabinetmaker and interior designer.
He was born into a family of carpenters and at 14
was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Paris; when he returned to
his own country in the late 1880s he was already a highly
skilled craftsman. He spent a few weeks in Milan at the studio
of Carlo Bugatti, whose exotic and extravagant designs had a
lasting influence on him, and after a few months Quarti had
established himself in a small workshop in Via Donizetti. He
became immersed in the thriving artistic life of late
19th-century Milan, encouraged by the enlightened teaching at
the school of the Societ? Umanitaria, where design courses were
based on social issues, and where he himself later taught. In
1888 Quarti met Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, a painter and
enthusiastic supporter of the avant-garde, whose views on beauty
and taste influenced the young designer. Quarti's earliest works,
several of which were exhibited to much acclaim at the
Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa in Turin in 1898,
were exquisitely carved individual pieces: desks, sideboards and
wardrobes in mahogany, inlaid with mother-of-pearl or silver.
The influence of Bugatti is evident, although Quarti's designs
are more restrained. An article (1899) by Vittorio Pica praises
Quarti's unique designs for being neither too imitative of
northern European Art Nouveau nor too austere, but instead
appealing to Italian taste and the needs of modern living.