Carlo Mollino - The Architect London Monday, April 28, 2014 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Marquis Vladi Orengo, Casa Orengo, Turin, 1949
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Literature

    ‘The Baroque Spirit in a Modern House: Carlo Mollino’, Interiors, December 1952, illustrated p. 89
    Giovanni Brino, Carlo Mollino: Architettura Come Autobiografia, Milan, 1985, illustrated p. 127
    Fulvio Ferrari, Carlo Mollino Cronaca, Turin, 1985, illustrated p. 104, figs. 164, 165
    'Torino Mole Antonelliana: Carlo Mollino 1905-1973', Domus (Milan), no. 706, June 1989, illustrated p. 16
    Roberto Gabetti, Carlo Mollino: 1905-1973, Milan, 1989, p. 219
    Rosella Colombari, Carlo Mollino, Furniture Catalogue, Milan, 2005, illustrated p. 61, fig. 96
    Fulvio Ferrari and Napoleone Ferrari, The Furniture of Carlo Mollino, New York, 2006, illustrated p. 87, figs. 72, 74, p. 225 for an image and
    Fulvio Ferrari and Napoleone Ferrari, eds., Carlo Mollino Arabesques, exh. cat., Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Milan, 2007, illustrated p. 84, figs. 107-109, p. 85, fig. 111

  • Artist Biography

    Carlo Mollino

    Italian • 1905 - 1973

    Carlo Mollino made sexy furniture. His style may have grown out of the whiplash curves of Art Nouveau, but the sinuous lines of his furniture were more humanoid than vegetal, evoking arched backs and other body parts. Mollino was also an avid aviator, skier and racecar driver — he designed his own car for Le Mans. His love of speed and danger comes across in his designs, which MoMA curator Paola Antonelli has described as having "frisson."

    Mollino had no interest in industrial design and the attendant constraints of material costs and packaging. His independent wealth allowed him to pick and choose projects, resulting in an oeuvre of unique, often site-specific works that were mostly executed by the Turin joinery firm Apelli & Varesio. Apart from a coffee table that he designed in 1950 for the American company Singer & Sons, his furniture never went into production. Notwithstanding the support of Gio Ponti, Mollino's design contemporaries largely dismissed him as an eccentric outsider. However, the combination of scarcity (Mollino only made several hundred works in his lifetime), exquisite craftsmanship and idiosyncratic "frisson" has rightly placed Carlo Mollino in the highest tier of twentieth-century design collecting.

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343

Unique and monumental ceiling light, designed for the Casa Orengo, Turin

1949
Opalescent glass, brass, wood, painted metal, tubular brass, original painted steel cable.
22.3 x 840.5 x 16.6 cm (8 3/4 x 330 7/8 x 6 1/2 in.)

Estimate
£220,000 - 280,000 

Contact Specialist
Alexander Payne
Senior Director & Worldwide Head, Design
apayne@phillips.com
+44 207 318 4052

The Architect

Created by Lee F. Mindel, London Auction 29 April 2014 6pm