Born in La Spezia on November 8, 1939, Gaetano Pesce studied architecture at IUAV in Venice, where Carlo Scarpa and Ernesto Nathan Rogers taught. In 1962 he began his design career, collaborating with C&B (now B&B Italia) on the UP Series, a series of iconic armchairs, including the famous UP5, a political manifesto on the condition of women. In 1983 he moved to New York, where he founded Fish Design. In 1996, a retrospective was dedicated to him at the Centre Georges Pompidou, and his work was exhibited in museums around the world. In addition to design, sculpture was his main activity, often combined with design.