Long Fixated on France, America, and Scandinavia, 20Th-Century Design Collectors Today Are Now Giving 106 Well-Deserved Attention to Italy by William L
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ECCO! Take a Look at Italian Design! Long fixated on France, America, and Scandinavia, 20th-century design collectors today are now giving 106 well-deserved attention to Italy By William L. Hamilton HILLIPS P GIO PONTI five imaGES, HRIStie’s; C A custom coffee table made in 1954 for Villa Arreaza, Caracas, made an appearance at the December 2011 Important Design sale at Wright, where it brought $170,500 against an estimate of $50–70,000. WRIGHT, CHICAGO. OPPOSITE, FROM TOP: FROM TOP: OPPOSITE, CHICAGO. WRIGHT, ART+AUCTION APRIL 2013 | BLOUINARTINFO.COM ECCO! Take a Look at CARLO MOLLINO With an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000, this unique oak- and-glass table, 1949, for the Italian Design! Casa Orengo catapulted to a record for the designer at Christie’s New York in 2005 when it sold for $3,824,000. 107 ETTORE SOTTSASS The multicolored glazed ceramic Flavia, a monumental set of five totems, designed in 1964 and executed ca. 1995, came to a finish at $97,000 on a $70,000- to-$80,000 estimate at Phillips de Pury & Company in 2007. BLOUINARTINFO.COM | APRIL 2013 ART+AUCTION hat if there were a secret stash in the earned $1.2 million, topping its presale estimate by 20 per- collecting market for 20th-century cent. Wright holds the auction record for Ponti, Italy’s design? A vast, undiscovered hoard of preeminent architect and designer of the last century; it was material? As it happens, there is, and set in 2007 when a suite of furniture designed for the it is Italian design. “It’s an Aladdin’s 9th Milan Triennale in 1951 brought $324,000. “It’s not an cave,” says Domenico Raimondo, emerging field now; it’s a serious field,” Wright says. the London-based specialist employed “What’s important is becoming clearer.” by Phillips auction house since 2007. Alex Heminway, director of the design department at After years of playing second fiddle Phillips in New York, says that “Italian design is driving our to the French, Italian 20th-century department’s bottom line,” and notes that the category design is now coming to light in represented 30 percent of the design department’s sales last the maturing collecting market. And what is appearing is year, which he describes as the “best year” ever. (Phillips Wjust the tip of the iceberg. To the fashionable—but oh-so- would not release a sales total.) familiar—names like Prouvé and Perriand, add Gio Ponti, So where has it been all these years? And why is it coming to Max Ingrand, Giuseppe Terragni, Gino Sarfatti, Carlo light now? Experts say the material has been buried by igno- Mollino, and Ettore Sottsass. In addition to well- rance—a lack of research, exhibitions, and cataloguing— established figures like Carlo Scarpa and Guido Gamboni and by a scanty track record of sales at auction. Also, the in glass and ceramics, respectively, there are dozens more market has been largely domestic: Italians collect Italian in every category of collecting from the 1930s to the 1980s. design but have done little to publicize it. And Italy lacks the Italian design is having its momento, and it represents network of dealers and auctioneers in antiques and design perhaps the last great opportunity for 20th-century design that has worked so systematically for the French, who collectors at every price point in the market. aggressively document pieces, pursue international buyers Early leaders in the field, like Wright, the Chicago auction at fairs, and support and protect prices, particularly house, and Phillips, in New York and London, are seeing in emerging, malleable markets like 20th-century design. their enthusiasm pay off. Richard Wright recalls important There have been notable breakouts, to be sure. A 1949 oak- lots of Italian design going unsold 13 years ago, when he and-glass table by Mollino, a classic if ordinary example of founded the business. Now he holds dedicated Italian sales, his work, sold at Christie’s New York in 2005 for $3,824,000 and the latest—“Italian Masterworks,” this past December— (est. $150–200,000) and held the auction record for 108 ICO AND LUISA PARISI The March Modern Design auction at Wright featured this Italian walnut three-seat sofa, 1946, reupholstered in a Madeline Weinrib fabric, with an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. WRIGHT ART+AUCTION APRIL 2013 | BLOUINARTINFO.COM ARCHIZOOM ASSOCIATI From one of several collectives that took a playful, Pop-inflected approach to design in the 1970s, the Safari sofa, ca. 1970, took $10,000 at the Important 20th-Century Design sale at Sotheby’s New York in June 2010. 20th-century design until 2009, when an Eileen Gray armchair sold for $28.3 million in the Yves Saint Laurent sale at Christie’s in Paris. Mollino seems certifiably blue-chip in the market: A smaller table sold at Christie’s New York in 2008 for $1,314,500 (est. $800,000–1.2 million). But the enormous body of work that is 20th-century 109 Italian design, below its heady high spots, is only now taking shape in a way that is comprehensible for collectors. Exhibitions and publications are providing authoritative information. Last November Milan’s Triennale Design VITTORIANO VIGANO Museum organized a retrospective (nearly 700 designs) of The prominent architect and Sarfatti, one of Italy’s most resourceful and prolific lighting onetime assistant to Gio Ponti designers. Writer Franco Deboni recently published Fontana created this fine example of Arte: Giò Ponti, Pietro Chiesa, Max Ingrand (available in architectural Italian design, a floor lamp of enameled metal, in the United States exclusively through Bernd Goeckler 1960. Casati Gallery, in Chicago, Antiques, a New York gallery that emphasizes Italian priced it this year at $8,500. design), which examines the innovative company founded by Ponti, with Chiesa as artistic director, in 1932 as a division of manufacturer Luigi Fontana’s glassworks. Ingrand served as Fontana Arte’s design director from 1954 to 1964 and is highly collectible today. An illuminated mirror he created during that period sold at Sotheby’s New York in December 2012 for $80,500 (est. $35–50,000). Research has in turn led to growing accessibility. In January the retail antiques and design website 1stdibs— popular with interior designers, who are a gathering force in the 20th-century design market—added search tools HICAGO C for Italian design to a menu that already included categories like “English Country House” and “Scandinavian Modern.” ALLERY, ALLERY, G The tools include a city search for dealers in Rome, Milan, ASATI ASATI and Florence; an alphabetical guide to designers; and a C curated collection of Italian design for one-stop shoppers. Even the French are coming on board. Galerie Kreo, OTHEBy’s; OTHEBy’s; S a Design Miami regular and an influential venue for new designers in Paris, is selling editioned work by Andrea FROM TOP: FROM TOP: Branzi, Alessandro Mendini, and Sottsass, three founders BLOUINARTINFO.COM | APRIL 2013 ART+AUCTION IGNAZIO GARDELLA of the Memphis Group, the provocative postmodern movement that launched in 1981 and disbanded in 1988. A bookcase, ca. 1955, features There is abundant opportunity for collectors, in no small crisply articulated geometry. The modular system, actually three part because of the unusual surfeit of high-quality design identical units, is priced produced in Italy during the last century, particularly after at $110,000 from Bernd Goeckler World War II. Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture Antiques, of New York. and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, observes in the museum’s 2008 publication Italian Design that creative design in Italy has taken place within a manufac- turing culture. Industry collaborated with and employed the nation’s architectural and artistic elite. Ponti, for example, who in the early 1950s was the principal designer of the 32- story Pirelli Tower in Milan—literally a pinnacle of postwar architecture in Italy—also designed tabletop ceramics for Richard-Ginori, dining chairs for Cassina, and a multitude of other household items. His Polsino lamp, designed in 1969 for Guzzini, sold in Wright’s Italian Masterworks auction last December for $5,000 (est. $2,000–3,000), making it a very affordable piece by the master. The history of Italian design, Stefano Casciani points out in his 2008 book Design in Italia, is the history of artisanal goods being transformed into industrial products. For collectors, even mass-produced items are satisfying in both concept and manufacture. In many cases, Italian design can be collected “in reverse”—by company rather than by designer. Zanotta, for example, the furniture design house founded in 1954, has worked with Mollino, Branzi, Sottsass, and, more recently, Arik Levy and Ross Lovegrove. 110 “There are a lot of one-hit wonders,” says Paul Donzella, a New York specialist dealer; looking at a particular company closely would best reveal them. At Phillips, Raimondo suggests another approach to collecting: Concentrate on a well-defined or distinguished Italian design❝ is category, like lighting. Italian design is brilliant—few dispute its prominence in the world of lighting design during the second half of the 20th century. Italian lighting, ❝driving our department’s as contemporary-looking as it comes, is also technologically progressive. Designers like Sarfatti, Achille and Pier bottom line. Giacomo Castiglioni, and Vico Magistretti often arrived at —Alex Heminway, Phillips form through the function of new types of tubes and bulbs. The most useful development in the secondary market for Italian design has been the emergence of a template for collecting. During the past 10 years, the field has come to be divided into three periods: the 1930s through the 1950s, with material usually created as custom commis- sions for private clients; the 1960s and 1970s, the heyday of international recognition and designer–manufacturer collaborations; and the late 1970s through the 1980s, commonly called the postmodern period.