(-), Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck 1917 - Milan 2007)...

Ettore Sottsass
(Innsbruck 1917 - Milan 2007)
Carlton Room Divider
Executed by Memphis Milano in 1981 (manufacturer's label on the back)
Coloured and laminated wood, H. 195.6 x W. 190.2 x D. 32.1 cm
Provenance:
- Copi, The Hague (1990)
- Private collection, the Netherlands
Literature:
- Commercial catalogue, Memphis Milano, Milan, 1986, p. 3
- Barbara Radice, Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography, Norton, London, 1993, p. 199
- Giampiero Bosoni, Italy: Contemporary Domestic Landscapes, 1945-2000, Skira, Milan, 2001, p. 232
- Giuliana Gramigna, Repertorio del Design Italiano, 1950-2000, Vol. 2, Umberto Allemandi, Turin, 2003, p. 300
- Giuliana Gramigna, Le Fabbriche del Design, Umberto Allemandi, Turin, 2007, p. 170
- Giampiero Bosoni, Il Modo Italiano: Design e Avanguardie Artistiche in Italia nel XX secolo, Skira, Milan and Montreal, 2007, p. 31
- Patrizia Ranzo, Ettore Sottsass, 24 Ore Cultura, Milan, 2011, cover and p. 73
- Philippe Thomé, Ettore Sottsass (Design), Phaidon Press, London, 2014, p. 303
Note:
Sottsass' Carlton Room Divider – or bookcase, created in 1981, is designed for the group's first collection and epitomises. Sottsass' use of brightly coloured laminates, graphic forms and non-functional elements that became the defining style of the decade. It reads as a bookcase, a room divider and a dresser, depending on who you ask. Its form is ambiguous enough to question, at first glance, whether it is a piece of furniture at all. The Carlton's seemingly haphazard arrangement of partitions and voids is actually based on a logical system of equilateral triangles, which support both the slanted and flat shelves. This design became one of the most recognisable Memphis products partly due to its size – measuring nearly 2 metres tall and almost as wide.