Selling Italy: Craft and Italianness in Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today (1950–53)

Abstract

In the early 1950s an exhibition of modern Italian design toured the United States. Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today displayed a wide range of objects, the majority belonging to the category of handicrafts. The exhibition sought to promote modern Italian craft objects to an American audience in an effort to stimulate an export market for similar wares. The enterprise was part of a larger program of investment intended to rehabilitate the country’s post-war reputation and economy and help stem the spread of communism in Europe. This article explores how a new idea of Italy—one that set its sights firmly on craft—was developed in this exhibition and in simultaneous department store displays. Traditional associations with fine art were pushed aside in a strategy which exploited preconceived notions of Italy as a pre-industrial society and celebrated the country as a site of special artisanal creativity. The objects on display were positioned in a narrative which satisfied consumer tastes for the modern but were also invested with the aura of an age-old craft culture. It was a strategy that effectively made the nation a by-word for quality craftsmanship even within an industrial context.