Ettore Sottsass, 'Muro', Iran 1998, Gelatin silver print, cm. 30 x 40, From an edition of 25, Signed and noted by the artist, Price on request
Sottsass was born in Innsbruck, in 1917. He graduated in architecture and he opened his own practice in Milan, where he works on architecture and design projects. Among his many activities, that of photographer is perhaps the less known but is of vital importance in understanding Ettore Sottsass, his work and his figurative vocabulary. His photographs are to him a sort of personal record and a source of ideas. His images have a delicate, intimate aura, as if they were the fragments of a long journey. Sottsass’ architecture, objects, photographs, and writings are all part of a structural design which integrates geometry with the senses. In considering architecture always and mostly “liveable and most of all lived”, Sottsass goes beyond the structural limits of Modernism, and arrives to a vision of life and things which is deeply conceptual yet, at the same time, emotional and psychological. With great coherence, sensibility and intuition, all of Sottsass’ work is developed under the methodological sign of stratification, of levels and volumes, which are not only “material” but also cultural and psychological. Today he works and lives in Milan.