Ettore Sottsass, Memphis Milano, Memphis Group

Italian, 1917-2007 An architect, industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, Ettore Sottsass led a revolution in the aesthetics and technology of modern design in the late 20th century. He was a wild man of the Radical Design movement that swept Italy in the late 1960s and ’70s, rejecting rationalism and modernism in favor of ever-more outrageous imaginings in lighting and furniture such as mirrors, lamps, chairs and tables. Sottsass was the oldest member of the Memphis Group — a design collective, formed in Milan in 1980, whose irreverent, spirited members included Alessandro Mendini, Michele de Lucchi, Michael Graves and Shiro Kuramata.

The Memphis Group was an Italian design collective founded in Milan in 1980 under the leadership of Ettore Sottsass. Its international members included Michele De Lucchi, Martine Bedin, Nathalie Du Pasquier, George Sowden and Matteo Thun. Memphis rejected the restraint of modernism in favor of bold colors, patterned laminates, asymmetry and playful geometric forms, becoming one of the defining movements of postmodern design.