Fortuny Museum

Fortuny Fabric is well known in the world of design, curtains and upholstery. The man behind the brand is Marianno Fortuny. The museum dedicated to his work is hosted in this large Gothic palazzo in Venise and it was transformed by Fortuny into his own atelier of photography, stage-design, textile-design and painting.
He was born in 1871, son of a renowed artist born. He quickly found his own interest in the art through theatre. He began his fascination with the decor then the back stage to be taken by the importance of light at a performance. He invented a new way of back lighting that allowed him to be projected a first time in the world of business through an association with a german company that started to produce his invention. He would then invent a new way of printing on silk and velvet that will become the trademark of the Fortuny factory. Without loosing sight on the artistic version of life, he took up photography and was still decorating museums, theatre and homes. Keen on the technological advances of these times, he was able to combine his artistic sense to the need to excell and propose new ideas. The two wars in the first half of the 20th century were a blow to his factory, but his creativity with the recognition of his talent by the rich and famous allowed him to continue in the path of art. He finished his life absorbed in painting and he died in 1949.
Today his palazzo hosts an exhibition of contempory art : "in-finitum" (from the soul of the unfinished to the border of the infinite, a spiritual journey along works of art abundant with energy.) It must be the decor planted in the Fortuny museum that gives these works of contempory art a warmth and a depth of color and lights.