Willy Rizzo Midcentury Tortoiseshell Plexiglass and Brass Magazine Rack, 1970

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About the Item

Midcentury magazine rack very rare tortoiseshell plexiglass with brass edges and handles. This fantastic piece is attributed to Willy Rizzo and was designed in Italy during the 1970s. This item has a classic and popular look of the 1970s, used by well-known designers such as Willy Rizzo and Tommaso Barbi. Amazing straight lines combined with fantastic brass finishes. A marvellous element that will complete a midcentury-style living room or studio. Imagination and necessity launched Willy Rizzo into the world of furniture design. As a photographer of Playboys and Starlets, he had a ready-made customer base eager to build their living quarters around an ultra-modern Rizzo piece and items that remain as timeless as his images. Rizzo's original venture into furniture design began in Rome and took place during an often reported visit to a Roman hair salon on the Piazza di Spagna in 1966. By testing the hairdresser's knowledge of local real estate agents, he ended up signing a six-month lease on an abandoned commercial apartment, barely habitable and without running water. Rizzo quickly set about turning the empty office into a living space, complete with brown and gold walls and custom-designed sofas, coffee tables, consoles and hi-fi storage units. Using a small group of local artisans recommended by the hairdresser who pointed him toward the accommodation, he completed the customised apartment, which acted as a template of sorts for the majority of his commissions to come. Though never his intention to become a furniture designer, Rizzo's friends, clients and contacts, many forming the upper crust of the fashion and film industries, fell in love with his creations and he was swamped with orders and requests. Fittingly, Rizzo's first commission came from Ghighi Cassini, the American Hearst newspaper columnist and socialite who coined the term "jet set" to describe the socialites and socialite lifestyle that Fellini immortalised in La Dolce Vita. Willy's work for Cassini effortlessly blended neoclassicism with modern styles and its success brought a swathe of Italian high-society to him. Willy Rizzo was uniquely placed as a designer for the Dolce Vita, being himself a part of the world for which he was designing. Infamous playboys, such as Rodolfo Parisi, Gigli Rizzi and Franco Rapetti, were some of his earliest clients. Salvador Dalí commissioned a number of pieces, as did Brigitte Bardot for the interior of La Madrague in St. Tropez. Being a consummate playboy of the era, Rizzo's client list is testament to how close his furniture was to the mark. By 1968, Willy's work was in constant demand, leading to the setting up of his own firm and the establishment of a factory just outside Rome at Tivoli, which employed over 150 staff, including the original team from his early apartment transformation. Over the following ten years, Rizzo designed and produced more than thirty pieces of furniture, including the famous steel-banded travertine dining tables and bronze table lamps, all of which were handmade. He opened boutiques across France and Europe and had points of sale in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles. However, in 1978, Rizzo gave it all up to return to photography, his first love. Willy Rizzo's furniture design channelled the sophistication of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, his pieces combining clean, simple lines with bold geometric forms and delicate handling of materials. His lack of formal training in furniture design placed him outside Italy's strong, indigenous design traditions, making his style utterly unique at the time. While Rizzo bought into the modernist principles of functionality and simplified forms, he deliberately avoided mass production, modern materials and industrial design, despite designers such as Giò Ponti endorsing the movement. Rizzo remained focused on a doctrine of traditional materials and craftsmanship, a response to the contemporary cultural environment, as opposed to current design trends. "It was never about recreating classic styles in modern furniture, that wasn’t the point. It was about creating something new for a traditional setting," Rizzo explains. Willy Rizzo's furniture is now widely exhibited, notably in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He returned to furniture design for a period in the late 1980s and then again in the mid-2000s, in collaboration with Paul Smith and Mallett Antiques. In 2010, at the age of 82, he opened his first gallery in Paris with the help of his wife, Elsa and his son, Willy Rizzo, Jr.

Attributed to:
Willy Rizzo (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 12.21 in (31 cm)Width: 22.45 in (57 cm)Depth: 10.24 in (26 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Brass,Lucite
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1970s
Condition:
Seller Location:
Roma, IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU3067322390352