This printed textile, Campagna, by Angelo Testa epitomizes his distinct design vocabulary. Likely named after Testa’s friend, Paul Campagna, Testa designed it around 1950 for Knoll Associates. Campagna utilizes Testa’s preferred linear and geometric forms, commonly associated with his Bauhaus training. The hard edges of the concentric rectangles in this textile, however, have been softened by their hand-drawn quality.
Campagna is one of the most well-known of Testa’s works and was published in many architecture and design journals of the day. It is indicative of his innovative work as a leading American textile designer of the 1940s and 1950s and represents an important moment in postwar America when textiles were a very calculated part of every modern interior.
Testa was the first graduate of the Institute of Design (formerly the New Bauhaus) in Chicago, where he studied under the artist László Moholy-Nagy and the architect George Fred Keck. Although Testa worked primarily in the field of printed textiles, he was also widely known as a painter and sculptor. In 1947, he founded his own firm, Angelo Testa & Co., which remained active until his death in 1984. His clients included major furniture companies such as Knoll Associates and Herman Miller and the textile firm, F. Schumacher & Co.