Bruno Munari

Bruno Munari was one of the protagonists of 20th century Italian art, design and graphic art. During his prolific 70-year career, he made various contributions to art. He was fond of (falsely) claiming that his name means "to make something out of nothing" in Japanese. Munari's principles and beliefs stemmed from his early involvement in the Futurist movement, which he joined at the age of 19. In the 1930s, Munari began to move closer to Constructivism, particularly with his kinetic sculptures Useless Machines, which were intended to reshape or complicate the surrounding environment.

Throughout his career, Munari was captivated by a sense of whimsy and the manipulation of artificial light. After World War II, he developed radical innovations in printmaking, typography, and book publishing through a body of work he called Useless Books.