On a very hot July day, surprised by an unedited photographic portrait of Lisa Bridges (Gio Ponti's eldest daughter) - reproduction of an original from a historical archive - within the Annamaria Consadori Gallery in Via Brera. A whole series of drawings, or rather letters drawn by Lisa Ponti (1922-2019) and sent to Aldo Buzzi, are exhibited.
Observing the drawings on display, one cannot fail to notice on the sheet a fold typical of a sheet folded in three parts to be packaged.
Here a letter entitled "Diary", without drawings, bears the dates 21,22,23 March 2009, while a postmark printed on an envelope is dated 8 August 2009, the last year of Buzzi's life, who died on 9 October 2009.
I am a company drawing: can I enter? writes Lisa in the drawing that gives the title to this Milanese exhibition
Why this belated correspondence? Lisa and Aldo had certainly known each other since the war years (the years to which the bronze portrait of Lisa created by Carmelo and exhibited in the gallery dates), but it is immediately afterwards that they collaborate in the creation of "Domus“. Aldo published a few short articles in the magazine between March and September 1944. In October 946 the piece L'Architetto appeared on the pages of the magazine saul steinberg which presents to the Italian public the new activity of the Romanian designer and artist who later became a naturalized American, who had been a study partner of Aldo at the Faculty of Architecture of the Milan Polytechnic. Lisa also publishes an article on Saul in "Domus", which comes out in May 1950.
saul steinberg Donna, 60s pencil on paper 21×27 cm
Probably the desire to get closer between Lisa and Aldo testifies to the desire to share a past. And it is Saul the trait d'union which puts the three protagonists back together at the end of their lives, in what, as Lisa says in one of the drawings on display: Gio Ponti did not say "old age". He said "great age".
Who was Lisa Ponti?
Gio Ponti's eldest daughter after graduating in Philosophy, he collaborated with his father. He began drawing and painting in the 50s «My father ordered me to», he said. In 1992 he held his first personal exhibition of drawings on A4 white paper at the Galleria Franco Toselli in Milan. With her father she frequented the great protagonists of the twentieth century becoming the travel companion of artists of at least four generations. Her writings, between poetry and art, reflect the way she lived. Among his books Gio Ponti to friends (1941) and the storybook The Magic Closet (1946). He has coordinated various exhibitions of Gio Ponti, in Italy and abroad, including in 1986 the exhibition at the Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo and in 1990 the book Gio Ponti. The work. On paper he has left us lines, abstract signs, delicate figurines, architectural subjects, small stories inspired by reality with an inexplicable lightness. Drawings like fairy tales, suspended in the air like magic.
Cover image: Lisa Ponti, 1962
In Venice in California, 1962 – Photo Charles Eames Photographic print 41×58,6 cm
