Euphrates Vase
Designer Ettore Sottsass Italian, born Austria
Manufacturer Porcellane San Marco
Retailer Memphis Milano Italian
Not on view
Ettore Sottsass was a seminal figure in 20th century design, evolving over the course of his career from modernism to postmodernism. In his early career, he took a functionalist and rationalist approach to design. By the 1960s, however, he began to look beyond function to create objects imbued with symbolism, emotional appeal, and global and historical references. The Euphrates Vase reflects an interest in ancient ceramics, as well as a focus on complex geometric forms, often seen in Sottsass's work for Memphis, the collective he established in the 1980s. Preliminary sketches for the vessel reveal Sottsass delineating classical vessel forms which he then dissects into sections and reassembles into this totem-like configuration.
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