Black Laminate veneer with glossy finish Cabinet, 1970s

Willy Rizzo (Italy, 1928 – France, 2013).

Sideboard for Mario Sabot, circa 1970s.

Laminate veneer with glossy finish, enhanced by mirror-polished stainless handles and edging. Designed and made in Italy.

120 x 48 x 75 H cm / 47.2 x 18.8 x 29.5 H in

Willy Rizzo was a photographer and furniture designer. 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.

 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.

 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.

 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 Gio 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.