Alfredo Taroni and his Lithos came into being 30 years ago in the silk district of Como, and there it developed and came of age. The area does not lie in Milan’s shadow but is if anything something of a senior partner, its orthodox workshop, and an Athens of Italian modernity. The area spawned the first group of abstract painters, such as Manlio Rho, Mario Radice and Aldo Galli, and architects like Giuseppe Terragni; intransigent, inspired rationalists, protected by a diversity inherent to the Lake Como area as compared with the Europe of the Modern Movement. A silk district is a place where the arts of weaving and of printing fabrics, and the use of colour, are learnt, both in large-scale enterprises and in small artisan workshops that use presses and lithographic techniques to produce numbered runs. Its activities have seen Lithos enter into contact with the leading figures in Italian Design and these designs have left their special mark. A chain of gems bears witness to the work, extending like the southern surface of the lake from Bellagio to San Giovanni, up to Lezzeno, where they fish for chub and shad. From Alfredo Taroni’s boat, you can see up to Como, or north to Lecco. No other European design regions have such a concentration of ideas and cooperation, and it shows.
– Andrea Branzi
Talking about the world of Lithos is like talking about a workshop that still employs all the skills of the trade that have been handed down from generation to generation, in one of the last great bastions of manual craftsmanship operating in the field of graphics. Nothing about it is showy, abstruse or pedantic. The results are consistently a pleasing, intriguing, and most modern kind of disorientation, amidst all the varied artistic styles and offerings, that is at once visual, temporal, mental, and emotional.
The books from Lithos are authors’ books, by artists and designers. They stand out as true and original works of art in book form that take us with them, physically carried by the artist’s creative flow. Their ability to do so has seen their pages often crossed paths with the lives of some of the greatest names in Italian architecture and design, including the likes of Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, Enzo Cucchi, Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi, and Corrado Levi. Lithos’ books are and have always been, original editions replete with modernity and originality in art forms that have emerged from the collaboration between the publisher and the artist. The artists’ books represent all the diverse and frequent manifestations that such a definition evokes, often running in counter currents one to another. Sottsass told us of his passion for the books as follows: “Meanwhile, little by little, I became addicted to that special pleasure that one gets from printing books, inputting a little of one’s life, or of another’s, down onto the printed page, having some of that life circulate among the audience, giving a new impulse to life, stimulating thoughts, arousing emotions, hatred, contempt, joy, and knowledge, and perhaps even thereby managing to find one’s true place on the planet.
If the book doesn’t sell, cubic metres of printed paper remain in stock, but it really doesn’t matter that much. The book is done, that little bit or that great piece of life is deposited on the paper, and the hope remains that the paper at least is good. In the meantime, life has touched it”. In his works the strong presence of the lesson of Alfredo Taroni’s Lithos is felt, where behind each book there is hidden a moment of reflection and memory, a thought that is perhaps coloured, whether it be green, pink, or blue, with shades of fantasy. There are the unmistakable traces of a previous life as a painter, designer, or sculptor who has signed his inspiration time and time again on canvas or in stone. Someone, namely another great designer Dieter Rams, once said, “A bookcase must be neutral, life springs from the books inside it”. That life that emerges from Lithos’ books, and is truly an incredible, and beautiful, life.
– Stefano Bucci
Alfredo Taroni and his Lithos came into being 30 years ago in the silk district of Como, and there it developed and came of age. The area does not lie in Milan’s shadow but is if anything something of a senior partner, its orthodox workshop, and an Athens of Italian modernity. The area spawned the first group of abstract painters, such as Manlio Rho, Mario Radice and Aldo Galli, and architects like Giuseppe Terragni; intransigent, inspired rationalists, protected by a diversity inherent to the Lake Como area as compared with the Europe of the Modern Movement. A silk district is a place where the arts of weaving and of printing fabrics, and the use of colour, are learnt, both in large-scale enterprises and in small artisan workshops that use presses and lithographic techniques to produce numbered runs. Its activities have seen Lithos enter into contact with the leading figures in Italian Design and these designs have left their special mark. A chain of gems bears witness to the work, extending like the southern surface of the lake from Bellagio to San Giovanni, up to Lezzeno, where they fish for chub and shad. From Alfredo Taroni’s boat, you can see up to Como, or north to Lecco. No other European design regions have such a concentration of ideas and cooperation, and it shows.
– Andrea Branzi
Talking about the world of Lithos is like talking about a workshop that still employs all the skills of the trade that have been handed down from generation to generation, in one of the last great bastions of manual craftsmanship operating in the field of graphics. Nothing about it is showy, abstruse or pedantic. The results are consistently a pleasing, intriguing, and most modern kind of disorientation, amidst all the varied artistic styles and offerings, that is at once visual, temporal, mental, and emotional.
The books from Lithos are authors’ books, by artists and designers. They stand out as true and original works of art in book form that take us with them, physically carried by the artist’s creative flow. Their ability to do so has seen their pages often crossed paths with the lives of some of the greatest names in Italian architecture and design, including the likes of Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, Enzo Cucchi, Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi, and Corrado Levi. Lithos’ books are and have always been, original editions replete with modernity and originality in art forms that have emerged from the collaboration between the publisher and the artist. The artists’ books represent all the diverse and frequent manifestations that such a definition evokes, often running in counter currents one to another. Sottsass told us of his passion for the books as follows: “Meanwhile, little by little, I became addicted to that special pleasure that one gets from printing books, inputting a little of one’s life, or of another’s, down onto the printed page, having some of that life circulate among the audience, giving a new impulse to life, stimulating thoughts, arousing emotions, hatred, contempt, joy, and knowledge, and perhaps even thereby managing to find one’s true place on the planet.
If the book doesn’t sell, cubic metres of printed paper remain in stock, but it really doesn’t matter that much. The book is done, that little bit or that great piece of life is deposited on the paper, and the hope remains that the paper at least is good. In the meantime, life has touched it”. In his works the strong presence of the lesson of Alfredo Taroni’s Lithos is felt, where behind each book there is hidden a moment of reflection and memory, a thought that is perhaps coloured, whether it be green, pink, or blue, with shades of fantasy. There are the unmistakable traces of a previous life as a painter, designer, or sculptor who has signed his inspiration time and time again on canvas or in stone. Someone, namely another great designer Dieter Rams, once said, “A bookcase must be neutral, life springs from the books inside it”. That life that emerges from Lithos’ books, and is truly an incredible, and beautiful, life.
– Stefano Bucci