Aldo Londi

Colour, Material and Ceramic Tradition

Aldo Londi (1911–2003) was one of the leading figures in twentieth-century Italian ceramics. A ceramicist, sculptor and designer, he devoted much of his career to Bitossi Ceramiche in Montelupo Fiorentino, helping to renew the language of Tuscan ceramic tradition.

His style emerged from the encounter between craftsmanship and experimentation: glazes, incisions, textures and intense colours transform vases, plates and figures into distinctive objects suspended between art and design.

The Rimini Blu series, developed for Bitossi from the late 1950s, is his most recognisable creation. Its intense shades of blue and turquoise and geometric patterns impressed into the clay have made it an icon of Italian design and vintage modernism.

Londi’s works for Bitossi, also distributed internationally through companies such as Raymor and Rosenthal Netter, brought Tuscan ceramics to an international audience, combining craft tradition, material experimentation and an extraordinary sensitivity to colour.