Art for Fortuny

Since its inception, the force that has driven the Fortuny brand is a pursuit of beauty. Born into a family of artists and patrons, Mariano Fortuny’s life was an education in the human hand and mind’s creative output. He pushed both to their limits with every opportunity. The combination of Fortuny’s skilled and studied draughtsmanship and his interest with both Old Masters and the contemporary moment he created resulted in an output that subverted both the classical and the avant-garde. Through color and pattern, Fortuny introduced the world to textiles that were neither dated nor trendy. Instead, like the greatest works of art, the past 100 years of our production have been an exploration of and response to universal truths that continue to inspire and perplex humankind.

At each step of our process, our textiles pass through the hand and before the eyes of the craftsman who have worked in our factory for decades. But beyond the art form of the fabric itself is the art that has directly inspired our textiles. Our collection includes prints named after some of the Baroque and Renaissance eras’ greatest creators in Europe. The light, line, color, and vitality of Veronese, Solimena, Piazzetta, Caravaggio, Murillo, Boucher, and Fragonard are captured in essence, not just in the fabrics that carry their names, but in every fabric produced by our factory.

Brilliantly crafted and inspired by artists, Fortuny fabrics are a complement, rather than a rival, to works of art. For this reason, our textiles have been used on the walls of museums and great private collections for as long as they have been produced. The Countess first fell in love with Fortuny’s textiles when she saw them on the walls of the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. Surrounded by paintings, sculpture, and ornate decorative arts from the history of Paris, what stood out to The Countess was the upholstery on the wall– for its singular beauty and for its ability to bring the room and all its objects together to create a complete picture of style and polish.

Those committed to the pursuit of beauty know the greatest reward lies not in the satisfaction of consuming great art, but using inspiration to infuse an object with a seed, an idea, a soul that in turn feeds the soul and imagination of others. It is this nurturing of the soul that makes beauty and its pursuit essential.