Events & Projects

CARLO MOLLINO A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH THE FIRST LOVE OF MY LIFE "Amarcord is today a word which in Italian indicates a nostalgic remembrance, the melancholy speaking of moments long gone in time". I was twenty when I first saw a piece of furniture by Carlo Mollino. One day I went to visit the antique dealer and friend Iorio Zolino in his shop in Turin. That afternoon he showed me a furniture piece designed by the then unknown architect Carlo Mollino fin 1944 for Ada and Cesare Minola’s home in Turin. It was love at first sight… My legs started to shake and my heart skipped a beat. For the first time ever, I felt the irresistible desire to buy an object immediately, without thinking twice. I quickly calculated in my mind how much I had in my savings account, and along with some borrowed money, the furniture which had stolen my heart became mine. The following day I had the piece moved to my gallery, which at the time was a few pieces piled up in a corner in the back room of my father's gallery. I started calling all the customers who were interested in avant-garde design to tell them about my discovery, but the response was discouraging. Unexpectedly, a few days later, a Turinese architect called me and bought the piece for an important sum for the time. Over the next weeks I started to receive a few phone calls from collectors interested in the mysterious architect, but the most important call was that of a well-known gallery owner from abroad was determined to acquire all of Mollino's furniture pieces which I was able to find. Using all of my shrewd detective skills, I discovered the address of the aeronautical engineer who was the owner of Mollino's last studio. During a visit to the studio, I had the opportunity to sift through Mollino’s documents and jotted down the names of some of his contacts. One of these names was “Lattes”, the owner of an important publishing house. I found their number in the Yellow Pages and immediately gave them a call. I was informed that the publishing house had recently closed its doors and that the furniture designed by Mollino for their offices had been transferred to a storage space. I was there in no time. At first glance, it looked like a cemetery: dark and dusty, with sheets concealing the refined and sensual forms of the piled-up furniture. I bought all of the pieces on the spot, and once they were delivered to my gallery my greatest pleasure was to admire them with my five senses: caressing the surfaces, observing forms and details, breathing in the sweet smell of wood. Since then more than 40 years have gone by. From my first “love at first sight” to today, a succession of exciting and surreal adventures (and misfortunes) linked to the architect have followed. Some of the works by Carlo Mollino which I sold over these forty years have travelled around the world, while others have stayed put in the homes of the first collector which I sold them to. Other pieces now find their way back to me today... And when they enter my Gallery, my heart still skips a beat, exactly like when I was twenty.