PARIS.- For the fifth consecutive year, Artcurial hosts an auction exclusively dedicated to design. After Charlotte for ever, devoted to Charlotte Perriand last year, the genius of Italian design Ettore Sottsass is the focus of this new opus.

Since the artist's death in 2007, never has his body of work been more celebrated. Ettore Sottsass' fantasy and joyful irony have marked the latter half of the 19th century the creative environment and since then has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for large number of 21st century designers.

In October 2018, the design department devoted a monographic auction to the founder of the influential Memphis movement. With some 40 lots, Repertorio Sottsass proposes an unique portrait of the creator, exploring all periods and mediums he favoured, from furniture to enamel including painting, ceramics and glass, providing a complete vision of his creative vocabulary.

This auction dedicated to Ettore Sottsass prefigures Artcurial's willingness to create a larger space for Italian design, with an auction devoted entirely to the specialty in November.

"Today, Sottsass has become synonymous with 19080's design, however his career started as early as the 1950's with drawings, ceramic … his artistic work will also be present in this auction as it permeates the entire body of his work" --Emmanuel Bérard, Director Design Department, Artcurial

The 1950's, the beginnings of an eclectic career
If Ettore Sottsass embodies the design of the 1980’s, his career starts much earlier. Intimate pieces created at the dawn of his career will be presented at the auction. This decision was made with the purpose to retrace the entire creative path of the artist, neglecting no aspect of his long career. Rarer at auction and lesser known to the general public, these early works shed light on the designer's artistic evolution.

As early as the 1950's, Ettore Sottsass draws, paints, works with ceramics and especially, entered a partnership with Arredoluce, a dynamic Italian lighting company from Monza, in the suburb of Milan. From this collaboration will emerge an exceptional suspension lamp, created in 1957. Offered for auction on 23rd October for an estimate of 50,000 - 70,000 / $58,500 - 81,900, the suspension lamp was only produced in a few copies, so complex was the manufacture. Composed of a truncated lacquered aluminium cupola which dissimulated a Perspex reflector, this exceptional piece boasts an avant-garde silhouette using “modern" materials…, an atypical style that contributes to the reputation of the nascent young designer.

The 1970's, Mobili Grigi, a series of iconic furniture
His collaboration with Poltronova, starting at the end of the 1950's, inspires Ettore Sottsass who creates the Mobili Grigi series in 1971. A singular set, determinant in the evolution of the artist's style which emphasizes his futuristic vision. Today genuine museum pieces, we will offer from Repertorio Sottsass some of the rare pieces remained in private collections, such as a fiberglass and resin library, estimated 25 000 – 35 000 € / 29 300 – 41 000 $.

Still in the early 1970's, Ettore Sottsass joins another Italian House of luminaries, Stilnovo. For them he designs a series of strange ceiling lights named Manifesto. They consist of a steel tube chrome plated, existing in two sizes and ending by a metallic sphere red which hides the light source. For Sottsass, it was important to give the furniture an architectural character and to shape space by creating bouquets of bright stalactites. A set of four of these ceiling lights will be presented during the Repertorio Sottsass auction, estimate 4,000 - 6,000 € / 4,680 - 7,020 $ each.

The 1980's, the Memphis period, A wind of creative freedom
In 1981, Ettore Sottsass founded the group Memphis which would revolutionize design, turning it into a true media phenomenon aimed at visual and spectacular effects. This movement, which borrows from Pop Art, uses for its creations in a wide range of colour, form and motifs. Consistent with Sottsass' philosophy, the Memphis group knows no limit.

Memphis pieces, produced in limited series, removing furniture from the mundane, are an ode to aesthetic and originality, but remain at the time reserved to the elite. The 1986 Sapho Cup, created in the midst of the Memphis movement, will be presented for an estimated 3 000 – 5 000 € / 3 450 - 5 750 $.

1955-2006, ceramic in the background
As early as 1959, the Il Sestante Gallery in Milan dedicated an exhibition to his ceramic work. Repertorio Sottsass will offer an exceptional piece from this milestone in the creative history of history of Sottsass, a rare 1959 ceramic estimated 35 000 - 45 000 € / 41 000 - 53 000 $, as well as other pieces from the successive decades that will comprehensive introduce this captivating body of work.

In parallel to his first exhibition in a French museum, at the Center Pompidou in 1994, Sottsass was invited by the Manufacture of Sevres. There he created 14 pieces of extraordinary originality, pushing as per usual, the limits of traditional expertise of the august manufacture. Repertorio Sottsass will present two pieces resulting from the collaboration between Sottsass and the Sèvres factory, including a Cozek vase from 2006, made during the artist's second residency between 2005 and 2006 (estimate: 12 000 - 16 000 € / 14 000 - 19 000 $).