Farewell to Gaetano Pesce, sculptor, designer, and architect best known for the "Up" armchairs and for bringing Italian inventiveness to the forefront of the design world. The legendary artist died yesterday at the age of 84 in New York, where he had lived since 1983, as reported by his staff, who wrote on Instagram that "his originality and courage are matched by no one. His distinctiveness, ingenuity, and particular message endure in his artistic creations". Pesce was born in La Spezia in 1939 and attended Venice's architecture and industrial design school. In the 1960s, he lived and worked between Padua and Venice, teaching all over the world before going to Helsinki, Paris, and, eventually, the United States. Pesce's sixty-year career has taken him through the history of art, design, and architecture, where he is most known for his polyurethane "Up" armchairs with humanoid shapes and his colorful furniture. His work is currently on exhibit in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the MoMA in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
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