19 Facts About Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass was known for his designs of furniture, jewelry, glass, lighting, homeware and office supplies.

Ettore Sottsass worked on numerous buildings and interiors, often defined by bold colours.

Sottsass was born in Innsbruck, Austria, and grew up in Turin, where his father, named Ettore Sottsass, was an architect.

Ettore Sottsass's father belonged to the modernist architecture group Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale, which was led by Giuseppe Pagano.

Ettore Sottsass's work was often associated with pop culture with his brightly colored whimsical objects.

Ettore Sottsass's pieces were often made out of glass and ceramic.

In 1949, Ettore Sottsass was married to Fernanda Pivano, a writer, journalist, translator and critic.

In 1956, Ettore Sottsass traveled to New York City and began working in the office of George Nelson.

Back in Italy in 1957, Ettore Sottsass joined Poltronova, a semi-industrial producer of contemporary furniture, as an artistic consultant.

In 1956, Ettore Sottsass was hired by Adriano Olivetti as a design consultant for Olivetti, to design electronic devices and develop the first Italian mainframe computer, the Elea 9003 for which he was awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 1959.

Ettore Sottsass's concern that his creativity would have been stifled by corporate work is documented in his 1973 essay When I was a Very Small Boy.

In October 1980, Ettore Sottsass was confronted with two proposals, one from Renzo Brugola, a dear old friend and carpenter, telling him his will "to make something together like in the good old times," and the other one from Mario and Brunella Godani, owners of the Design Gallery Milano, who asked him to create "new furniture" for their gallery.

Ettore Sottsass founded the Memphis Group in Milan on 11 December 1980, after the Bob Dylan song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" played during the group's inaugural meeting.

Ettore Sottsass Associati was established in 1980 and gave the possibility to build architecture on a substantial scale as well as to design for large international industries.

In 1985, Ettore Sottsass left the Memphis Group to focus on the Associati.

Ettore Sottsass Associati is based in London and Milan and continue to sustain the work, philosophy, and culture of the studio.

Ettore Sottsass collaborated with well-known figures in the architecture and design field, including Aldo Cibic, James Irvine, Matteo Thun.

Ettore Sottsass created a vast body of work: furniture, jewelry, ceramics, glass, silver work, lighting, office machine design and buildings.

Design objects and drawings by Ettore Sottsass are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Design Museum in London, the Vitra Design Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.