Lorenzo Foglia

Foglia Firenze 1935

Silversmith

The master of the chisel

Lorenzo is heir to over 80 years of artistic history
His work merges classic lines with new stylistic research
He combines silver with traditional and contemporary materials

The Foglia family has been working with precious metals for three generations. Lorenzo himself started in 1985, but, as he likes to underline, “it would be more correct to say that I was born into the business, as is often the case in families of artists and artisans, where you breathe in the craft from a very early age.” He describes his training as ‘open’, meaning “I firmly believe that only through comparison and the mixing of cultures and energies can we achieve the tools to create works that have a relevance from an artistic and design point of view.” In 1999, he started his entrepreneurial journey with Foglia Argenteria, which in 2015 became Foglia Firenze 1935 in acknowledgement of the 80 years of silversmithing and goldsmithing heritage passed on by his grandfather first to his father and finally to Lorenzo.

Interview

What do you specialise in?: I was trained as a goldsmith chiseller, so my specialisations are embossing and chiselling in the most classic sense. But to be a chiseller you must master a number of skills, from drawing and design to sculpture, and possess a profound historical and philosophical knowledge of the arts.
What inspires your creations?: Nature is my main source of inspiration. It fascinates me, even philosophically, to represent it. This is how even my most contemporary creations, like the Ventagli, are inspired by the beams of light that pierce the clouds.
How important are tradition and innovation to you?: As history teaches us, every artist needs everything that modernity can offer, in both technology and philosophy. Only then can new visions be conceived. It is not the use of a 3D printer that produces innovative work, but what it represents. Only art expressed in every field of human knowledge is innovation.
How would you define your work?: Very often people say it must be patient work, because surely it takes a long time and many hammer blows to do. But nobody thinks that a pianist is patient because he presses the keys of a piano for hours. In my craft, every gesture is dynamic and there is no trace of patience, only creative fury!

Lorenzo Foglia is a master artisan: he began his career in 1985 and he started teaching in 1999