Lino Sabatini Biography
He was born in Correggio (Reggio Emilia) on 23 September 1925 to simple and hard-working people. While still a child, the family moved to Blevio, a small cluster of houses on Lake Como. He is different from other boys: rather than playing, he prefers long walks in the mountains that end with dives into the lake. He is passionate about music and theatre. As soon as he was fourteen he found work in Como in a shop selling banal brass objects. It's not a random choice. Soon he came across an issue of “Domus”, Gio' Ponti's magazine. It becomes his textbook, his Bible, his correspondence school. In the brass workshop he earned his living, but also learned the metalworking technique. In an old mill on the lake he meets Rolando Hettner, a stateless German who shapes beautiful ceramics, paints and reads many books. The man from the old mill becomes the exhilarating experience of his free time, the master of existential tensions who encourages disruptive artistic solutions. Sabattini, now thirty years old, left Blevio to move to Milan where he set up, in a basement, a small laboratory with the tools essential to his work. The ties with “Domus” intensify. Now he also meets young architects, students of Gio' Ponti. One of these brings the master some metal object created by the young craftsman. One day Ponti shows up at his door. Look, touch, give him an idea to develop. Only three days pass and Sabattini finishes the job. Ponti is enthusiastic about it. Thus began the friendship relationship marked by fundamental stages: Milan Triennials, Venice Biennials, publications in the best magazines in the world, solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In 1956 Sabattini created a sensation with the prototype of the “Como” service in the Paris exhibition “Forms and Ideas of Italy”. From 1958 to 1963 he worked in Paris and Milan for the famous Christofle house, trying in vain to sweep away worn-out soulless productions. In 1964 he moved to Bregnano, a small town between Como and Milan. He becomes an entrepreneur of his ideas, of his sensitivity, of his diversity that found no space in the contemporary world of production. Thus began his solitary adventure which took shape in Argenteria Sabattini, where he created the clearest and most beautiful shapes in silver.
