Ettore Sottsass for Cleto Munari. A Gold ‘Arches’ ring, 2002 and a Diamond, Onyx and Gold ‘Roof’ Ring, 1985.
by Eva Violante
In the early 1980’s, Italian designer Cleto Munari invited twenty world renowned architects including Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Peter Shire, and Peter Eisenman to create a jewelry collection for his namesake brand. Munari envisaged a number of interdisciplinary projects for the design brand focused on precious metals that he founded in the early 1970s with Carlo Scarpa. Lucky for us, an out of print book, Jewelry by Architects by Barbara Radice, 1988, documented the historic jewelry collaboration among these leading figures in design.
Cleto Munari, left. Ettore Sottsass, right. Courtesy of Alessandro Munari.
Perhaps one of the most important collaborations was with fellow Italian architect and designer, Ettore Sottsass. According to Alessandro Munari, nephew and Managing Director of Cleto Munari, the two were dear friends since 1972 and business partners for ten years. “Ettore was Cleto’s mentor and closest friend.”
Ettore Sottsass for Cleto Munari. A Diamond, Onyx and Gold ‘Roof’ Ring, 1985. Featured in Jewels by Architects, Barbara Radice, 1988.
Together the two created a limited-edition jewelry line that defied traditional jewelry limits. The lines, volume, scale and architectural stories revealed in each jewel were novel to the industry. We are pleased to offer two jewels born out of this collaboration in Phillips' Jewels & More online auction, 22-28 July. First, A Diamond, Onyx and Gold ring, 1985, produced as part of the “Jewels by Architects” series and featured in the eponymous book. There were less than nine pieces of this original design produced between 1985 and 1998. Inspired by a roof, it is easy to see the correlation between this roof or “tetto” ring and the unconventional roofs that Sottsass could regularly be found drawing, sketching, and modeling.
Courtesy of Sottsass Associates, Rizzoli, 1988.
Sottsass had a talent for making an ancient design new and relevant.
Likewise, the “Arches” ring is one of the 32 Sottsass for Cleto Munari jewels designed in 2002 as part of the “La Seduzione” series, and it is a limited edition, numbered “9/9”. Combining their skills, Sottsass and Munari conceived jewels that translate the most advanced figurative research from centuries of architectural study into wearable gold objects. For example, “Arches” architectural composition transfers Brunelleschi’s cupola from the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore directly to the hand. “Sottsass had a talent for making an ancient design new and relevant.” Thus, it is no surprise that Sottsass, founder of the breakthrough ‘Memphis Movement’ in design, was celebrated for pushing the boundaries between industrial design and pop culture. At 90 years old Cleto Munari says of his friend, “what Ettore did with Memphis Group has really been the very last important movement in Italian design.”
Ettore Sottsass for Cleto Munari. ‘Atrium’ Ring, 2002.
Cleto Munari’s objects are now part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, among others. Sottsass, one of the most important figures in post-modern design, is led in the auction world by Phillips.