Bidspirit auction | Carlo Mollino

Carlo Mollino - Carlo Mollino (1905 - 1973) - Untitled, 1962/1973. Polaroid applied on original cardboard cm 10,8 x 8,5 | 4.3 x 3.3 in. Framed Unique work PROVENANCE Design, Artcurial, Paris, December, 1st, 2015, lot 276 EXHIBITIONS Carlo Mollino, Arabesques, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, 2006/2007 LITERATURE F. Ferrari, N. Ferrari, Carlo Mollino, Arabesques, Electa, Verona, 2006. Reproduit p. 274 Carlo Mollino (Turin 1905 - 1973) was an intrepid character who eludes any simple definition because to his activity as a great and innovative architect he combined that of pilot of airplanes and racing cars, designer and ski instructor. From his engineer father he inherited a passion for photography, yet another area in which he excelled both as a theorist (“The Message of the Camera Obscura” published by Chiantore in 1949 is a fundamental book on history and aesthetics) and as an author first of architectural and interior shots in both black and white and color and then of portraits and female nudes made with Polaroid film.  Between 1956 and the mid-1970s Mollino systematically photographed the female world, creating a real gallery of shots that did not stop at the threshold of eroticism, however present, but winked with refinement at surrealist references. Like the many women, friends, casual acquaintances, and models who took turns in Mollino's studio house, so, does the protagonist of this photograph embody the modules of an entire erotic imagination: nudity is exhibited with a nonchalance that nevertheless involves an elegant posture, the fur coat on which the girl sits is inviting, the shoes that represent the only item worn are a fetishistic allusion, the warm lighting creates an intimate atmosphere while the woman rather than “looking into the camera” fixes her direct gaze on us with a simplicity charged of sensuality.