Ceramiche Giotto

The laboratory of ceramics art "GIOTTO", located in Monte San Savino, at Le Fonti, was founded by Giotto Giannoni in 1919. At that Giotto had just twenty-four old, had a long history, Giotto joined a tenacious love for the modules of the past, a strong and inventive genius and so, in turn a few years, developing a range of issues set in the first period of its activity and in part derived from the finest local tradition, Giotto created a personal style, called Giotto-style, whose characteristics remain important milestones in the art of ceramics. The shop of Monte San Savino became a landmark in the Tuscan pottery production, and a goal must of the great italian and foreign collectors, among them Winston Churchill, Eisenower, the House of Savoy, which was carried out a series of dishes with portraits of the family, the Guicciardini's Contess and Charles of Anjou. Giotto, before dying, made time to pass on, intact, his artistic legacy to his son Araldo, occurring both as a modeler and turner-clay that as a painter. Animated by the same creative passion, Araldo Giannoni enlarged the home-workshop of "Le Fonti", and with the valuable collaboration of his wife Anna Varignani, also a ceramist, who experimented new techniques work, is continuing his father’s work, perpetuating the historical Savines types and the "Giotto-style", and extending the production with the recovery of ancient forgotten Tuscan models, and with the implementation of new ideas, original, through a constant search for new technical solutions. Araldo and Anna, in the late 70’s, make their home-shop, a landmark and meeting place for intellectuals and artists, since 1978, to create a "We find by Giotto", an annual gathering of artists from Tuscany, involving among other ceramists Fantoni, Gambone and Brandimarte. During those same years, the Giotto shop restructuring is characterized by production of formal high quality, even if necessarily contained within the limits imposed by the artisan, executed entirely by hand, the turning of the individual items to their painted decoration, all inevitably "unique". Since 2003, the pottery tradition of the family has continued also with Araldo’s sons, Arianna and Alessio. Alessio Giannoni was trained in the family workshop and attended various ceramics courses at some artists’ of Deruta. He is perfectly integrated in the work of the factory getting involved in model making, turning the wheel and painting, renewing the classical style, typical of the “Giotto” factory, with new plastic and chromatic types, that meet the tastes of most modern costumers.