SOS-12
Progetto grafico per tessuto per la X Triennale di Milano
1954
Tempera on cardboard
9 x 15,5 cm
Ettore Sottsass junior was born in Innsbruck on September 14th 1917. After high school studies and a degree in architecture from the Polytechnic of Turin, obtained in 1939, Sottsass was enlisted and sent to Montenegro, where he remained for 6 years in a prison camp. In 1947 he began working in Milan in collaboration with his father, the architect Ettore Sottsass senior, and later opened his first Design studio. In 1948 he took part in MAC, Movimento di Arte Concreta, and participated as an artist in the first group show of the collective, again in Milan. Following the promotion of the Roman exhibition on Abstract Art in Italy, he also joined the Spatialism. In 1958 he began his important collaboration with Olivetti in the field of computer design, a union that would last almost 30 years. In 1966 he began the Radical Period, of which Sottsass is certainly one of the main protagonists. In 1972 he exhibited at the MoMA in New York in the group exhibition Italy: the new domestic landscape, curated by Emilio Ambasz. Five years later he achieved another success: he received an honorary degree from the Royal College of Art in London, after having held numerous conferences in England. In the meantime he also began to collaborate with several art galleries.
Particularly significant in Sottsass’s artistic career was the founding of the Memphis collective in 1981. The Group lasted six years, a few years during which the concept of Design was revolutionized: it was no longer just about objects but about objects of art, whose function was subordinate to the emotion that they themselves could arouse.
His most important solo exhibitions include the ones at the Cooper Hewitt in New York (1972), at the Retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou (1994), the exhibition at the Suntory Museum in Ōsaka (2000) and at the International Design Zentrum in Berlin (2003).
Sottsass died in Milan on December 31th 2007.
Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory, Intitute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
Ettore Sottsass – More Gallery, Giswil, Switzerland
Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical - The Met Breuer, New York, NY
Ettore Sottsass: Rebel and Poet - Vitra Design Museum, Weil-am-Rhein
Ettore Sottsass: Designer of the World - Château de Montsoreau, Montsoreau
Ettore Sottsass: The Glass – Le Stanze del Vetro, Venezia
Ettore Sottsass. Oltre il Design – CSAC, Università di Parma, Parma
Ettore Sottsass: There is a Planet, La Triennale di Milano, Milano
Ettore Sottsass, Friedman Benda - New York, NY
Sottsass - Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, Paris
Ettore Sottsass: Smalti 1958 – Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea, Roma
Ettore Sottsass, A Survey: 1992-2007 - Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Ettore Sottsass: Keramik (Ceramic) - Hetjens-Museum Düsseldorf, Deutsches Keramikmuseum, Düsseldorf
Ettore Sottsass Archetypes 1965-1995 - Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Vorrei Sapere Perché, una mostra su Ettore Sottsass – Saone degli Incanti, Museo di Trieste, Trieste
Homage à Ettore Sottsass - Centre George Pompidou, Paris
Ettore Sottsass - Ghent Mseum, Ghent
Ettore Sottsass New Works 2005-2007 - Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Ettore Sottsass. Work in Progress- Design Museum, London
Ettore Sottsass: Architect and Designer - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
Ettore Sottsass - MART, Rovereto
Ettore Sottsass - Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli
Ettore Sottsass: A Master Returns - Barry Friedman Ltd., New York, NY
Museo d’Arte Decorativa, Cologne
Ettore Sottsass - Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne
Ettore Sottsass - Barry Friedman Ltd., New York, NY
Ettore Sottsass - International Design Zentrum, Berlin
Suntory Museum, Ōsaka
Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Ettore Sottsass, 151 drawings – Ma Gallery, Tokyo
Ettore Sottsass. Rétrospective - Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Ettore Sottsass: Adesso però. Reiseerinnerungen - Deichtorhallen Museum, Hamburg
Design Gallery, Milano
Ettore Sottsass: Furniture for the Ritual of Life - Blum Helmann Gallery, New York, NY
Cooper Hewitt, New York
Ettore Sottsass JR. De l’objet fini à la fin de l’objet - Musée sed Arts décoratif, Paris
Ettore Sottsass Jr. – La Bertasca, Genova