Bruno Danese, visionary design publisher, dies at 87

Bruno Danese, the influential Italian design publisher and entrepreneur, died yesterday in Milan at age 87. Born in 1930 in Valdagno, Vicenza, he moved to Milan in his youth and founded the ceramics company DeM with Franco Meneguzzo in 1955. In 1957, together with his wife, photographer Jacqueline Vodoz, he launched Danese Milano, a pioneering design laboratory that reimagined home accessories during Italy's economic boom as functional-sentimental objects infused with irony and surprise. Danese's close collaboration with masters like Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari defined the company's unique catalog, producing iconic pieces such as Munari's Cubo ashtray and Falkland lamp (made from tubular elastic stocking material), his Pre-Libri children's books, and Mari's Putrella tray, Timor and Formosa calendars, and educational games. In 1991, Danese and Vodoz sold the company to French group Strafor-Facom (later acquired in 1999 by Carlotta de Bevilacqua, current owner and director). They then established the Fondazione Vodoz Danese, which now houses the brand's archives. In 2006, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris held a monograph exhibition titled "Danese, Editeur de design à Milan 1957-1991," recognizing the company as "a brand, a company, but above all an emblematic adventure of how Italian design established itself from the 1950s."