Carlo Bugatti

Italy

Person

Designer

Born 16 February 1856 Milan, Italy Died April 1940 Molsheim, France Carlo Bugatti was the son of the sculptor Giovanni Luigi Bugatti. In the late 1870s he studied architecture at the Accademia di Brera in Milan and the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris. From 1880 he worked as an architect in Milan and created some of his first furniture designs, including a bedroom suite for his sister’s marriage to Giovanni Segantini. Before 1888 he established his own workshop, producing distinctive wooden furniture often covered with painted vellum. In 1888 he exhibited his work at the Fine Arts Fair in Milan and, for the first time abroad, at the 'Italian Exhibition' in London. His achievements were recognised with a Silver Medal at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 and a Grand Diploma d’Onore at the First International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin in 1902. After selling his Milan workshop and production licences to De Vecchi, he moved to Paris in 1904 and worked as a designer for the department stores Dufayel and Au Bon Marché. In 1907 he presented silverwork for the first time at the gallery of Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard. From 1910 he lived in Pierrefonds near Compiègne, devoting himself to painting and sculpture. From 1914 to 1918 he served as mayor of Pierrefonds. In 1935 or 1937 he moved to Molsheim, where his son Ettore Bugatti owned the famous automobile factory.