Born in Florence in 1915, he began studying ceramic art at age 12 at the Art Institute of Florence with ceramicist Carlo Guerrini, artistic director of the famed Cantagalli Factory.  He continued years of training in ceramics and the arts, including sculpture with Libero Andreotti and Bruno Innocenti, and figurative art with Gianni Vagnetti, graduating as a maestro of art in 1934.  After a stint as art director for a ceramics factory in Perugia, in 1936 he opened the Fantoni Ceramic Studio in Florence.  Here he produced ceramic series as well as unique pieces, sculptures and furnishings.  In 1937 Fantoni’s pieces were exhibited in the Florence National Arts and Crafts Exhibit where their unique combination of rustic forms decorated with African and marine motifs and painted figures garnered considerable acclaim.  By the start of World War II Fantoni’s melding of ancient Italian pottery techniques with decidedly Modernist elements had won him artistic and commercial success both in Italy and abroad.  When Fantoni died in Florence in 2011 at the age of 95, his obituary in the Italian newspaper La Nazione hailed him “The master of beauty." (Marcello Fantoni: Ceramista in Firenze Dal 1929 by Antonio Paolucci, Edizioni della Bezuga, 1999)