Joe Colombo (1930 - 1971)

Born in 1930 in Milano, Joe Colombo is a multifaceted artist, altogether a painter, draftsman, furniture designer, architect. His short career (he died at the age of 41) was very prolific and full of energy.

One of his iconic pieces is the "Tube Chair". He designed it in 1969, just one year after student protests took over streets and squares throughout the West. The extremely original armchair he invented - combining four hollow cylinders in PVC, foam rubber, and jersey or leather - is proof of the deeply oppositional spirit of the Milanese self-professed "anti-designer".

Like many of his fellow artists in Italy and in Europe who gathered under the Radical Design label, and drew inspiration from Pop Art and avant-gardist movements, Colombo used art to express his dissent for mainstream rationalism.