Carlo Mollino

[jorge borg]

Carlo Mollino always lived in Rivoli villa with his parents.
In 1955-1956, he rented from Mr Scalero a small apartment in the Turin hills looking down on the city. There, until 1962, he tool hundred of photographs of nudes.
As had already been the case with the Miller house and as subsequently occurred with Villa Zaira, Mollino first prepared the setting for his photographs. The small apartment, consisting in a living room and a small bedroom, was furnished with furniture he had designed in the 1940s, with mass-produced pieces such as the D-70 settee by Tecno and with new projects such as the butterfly picture, the fireplace and the entire bedroom. After Mollino had constructed the space, he focused in the garments, especially the lingerie, which he sought out and purchased himself. In fact different women are photographed wearing the same pieces. Later, for his Polaroid photographs, he built up a wardrobe of dozens of dresses and pairs of shoes.
The photographic session was prepared, planned we could say, with the precision of the architect.
A young friend procured and invited the chosen women to the villa on the hillside, where Mollino and a friend were waiting for dinner. They were mainly hostesses working in night clubs.
Steffanone, the famous Turin delicatessen, delivered the catering in the meantime. They dined and chatted; they joked and danced to the notes of the ever-present musical accompaniment. Mollino would immediatly ask the girls to put on the clothes from his wardrobe and promptly started to take photographs around the dining table to accustom the women to the camera lens and put them at ease. The genuine roll of film he inserted into the camera regulary ended up un the waste bin, not even developed. Late in the evening, having created the proper intimacy and the two friends having vanished with their companions, Mollino and the chosen girl, or sometimes a couple, started the photographic sitting proper often continued for many hours until morning. This was the fundamental and priority objective of the evening.
Not every evening passed in this way althought they were organized with certain regularity. Mollino tried not to form merely superficial relationships with the girls; he loved to create sincere human and friendly contact, which was crucial to the success of the pictures and his pleasure. The models with which he established the greatest harmony were photographed several times and became friends. Not all the models were hostesses; we know that for him any opportunity for meeting a woman was a good one. Some of his models were proper girlfriends, women who had nothing to do with night clubs, women living totally normal lives and with normal jobs, who Mollino often continued to see as friend for years after their engagement had ended.

The vast majority of the pictures were taken by Mollino with his Leica, using color negatives and a small number in b/w. A very few were taken in a 6x9 format. After the photographic session ended, he would start to work on the end picture. Mollino was by then no longer printing his photographs himself as he had done in the 1930s.
His friend Monatanaro, who owned an optics and photographic shop, did the printing for him. Placing nude negatives in someone else's hand was a delicate and confidential passage. In those days it was a serious problem for a man to take female lingerie to the laundry. Throughout the 1960s, Playboy magazine was obtained in Italy only by subscription and in an unmarked envelope, with the risk of criminal proceedings if discovered.

Contact prints in which Mollino has chosen the pictures, indicating their cut for printing.

[jorge borg]

Villa Scalero




The model Evi with Mollino's Piper-Comanche, 1961.

[jorge borg]

Mollino's Leica

[jorge borg]

[jorge borg]

[jorge borg]

This working "for himself" is maturity attained, achieved at around fifty year of age. Doing for yourself in the sense, considered scandalous today, of not caring about fame, comparison, public recognition, or money. A crazy way of working, with all the chrisms of serious official work, but were the client is...yourself. Giving yourself a great deal of time, intellectual and physical commitment, money, for a personal project, before a judgment that is no longer human, that is nothing but that of etermity.
This was a project that could not fail to include, in a heightened observation that was increasingly focused as his life passed, the mystery and dream of grace and elegance, seduction, most perfect to him. So here he is once more, the "gatherer" and anxious biologist, exhausted after long sleepless nights at the Polaroid viewfinder.

Polaroids used by Mollino, models 800, 900 and J66.

[jorge borg]

Villa Zaira

[jorge borg]

C.Mollino, ex libris for Piero Ferrari, 1930s.

[jorge borg]

Mollino with his Zlin 226, october 1963.

[jorge borg]

Mollino with his Bisiluro.