Olivetti Valentine Typewriter by Ettore Sottsass
SoldOlivetti Valentine Typewriter by Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Perry King, 1968.
Incredible condition, with original case and rubber straps. Freshly-serviced with new ribbon. Works perfectly.
This is the less often seen Spanish version with inverted question mark “¿”, exclamation mark “¡” and the letter n with a tilde “ñ”.
The Valentine typewriter is included in numerous museum collections, including MoMA New York and San Francisco.
Sottsass suggested that the Valentine was a machine that was designed to keep poets company on lonely weekends in the country.
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Ettore Sottsass (14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was an Italian architect and designer during the 20th century. His body of work included furniture, jewelry, glass, lighting, home objects and office machine design, as well as many buildings and interiors.
In 1958, Sottsass was hired by Adriano Olivetti as a design consultant for Olivetti, to design electronic devices and develop the first Italian mainframe computer, the Elea 9003 for which he was awarded the Compasso d’Oro in 1959. He also designed office equipment, typewriters, and furniture. There Sottsass made his name as a designer who, through colour, form and styling, managed to bring office equipment into the realm of popular culture. His first typewriters, the Tekne 3 and the Praxis 48, were characterized by their sobriety and their angularity. With Perry A. King, Sottsass created the Valentine in 1968 which is considered today as a milestone in 20th century Design.
Ettore Sottsass founded the Memphis Group in Milan on December 11, 1980, after the Bob Dylan song “Stuck inside of mobile with the Memphis blues again” played during the group’s inaugural meeting. The group was active from 1981 to 1988.
Sottsass created a vast body of work: furniture, jewelry, ceramics, glass, silver work, lighting, office machine design and buildings. He inspired generations of architects and designers. In 2006 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art held the first major museum survey exhibition of his work in the United States. A retrospective exhibition, Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress, was held at the Design Museum in London in 2007. In 2009, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht presented a re-construction of a Sottsass’ exhibition ‘Miljö för en ny planet’ (Landscape for a new planet), which took place in the National Museum in Stockholm in 1969. In 2017, on the occasion of Sottsass’ 100th birthday, the Met Breuer museum in New York City presented the retrospective Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical.
Source: Wikipedia