Willy Rizzo

Grandson of Neapolitan magistrates, he had a passion for photography from an early age. From the age of 12, at the Italian high school in the rue de Sédillot in Paris, he portrayed his classmates with the Agfa Box offered to him by his beloved mother.

In 1944, still a teenager, he bought his first Rolleiflex on the black market and met a wonderful little-known photographer, Gaston Paris, who became his idol. He said to him: ".... when you take a photo, think that you are making a Fragonard! But in some cases, press and think afterwards. He criss-crosses the studios of Billancourt, Joinville or Buttes-Chaumont by bicycle, photographing all the stars of French cinema who will soon swear by him. He was hired at Point de Vue where he began to report. He goes to Tunisia to photograph charred tanks on battlefields. There, he takes his shots at dusk to have a low and different light. The result is spectacular and Life Magazine buys the report from him. After the war, Willy was recruited by the weekly France Dimanche, headed by Max Corre, who enjoyed tremendous success specializing in the private lives of celebrities. He was sent to Cannes to cover the first Festival without limitation of costs. He will have the most incredible hunting table: princesses, playboys, starlets and stars parade in front of his Zeiss Sonnar 180 lens. But America attracts him. In 1947, the English agency Blackstar sent him to the United States to "photograph what surprised him": from a $ 1 machine that distributes stockings to cinema drive-ins. But he prefers women, fashion and settles in Los Angeles. He discovers California, which is still legendary, and reports on stars: Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, Gary Cooper, Anne Baxter ... who are selling very well.

In 1949, Max Corre calls him to announce that Jean Prouvost is setting up a large magazine in Paris, he returns and meets Hervé Mille. This is the start of the Paris-Match adventure. Willy signs the very first color cover of Paris-Match with Winston Churchill. His report on Maria Callas inspired Hergé who, in "Les bijoux de la Castafiore", created his character: Paris Flash photographer Walter Rizzoto, he and his friend Walter Carone.

A new aristocracy of photographers is being born around this cheerful band of boys, young romantic firsts and daredevils, who had as distinctive sign of nobility their only Leica, brandished like a trophy. Expert Christian Dior will say that the Paris-Match on rue Pierre-Charron was "the most beautiful cabin in Paris".

For twenty years, Willy Rizzo will do hundreds of charming and fashion reports with the same mastery and this constantly renewed invention that characterizes the great press photographer. "Our job is a perpetual challenge," says Willy Rizzo. When you have an hour with a celebrity, talent must be there right away. We must immediately find the idea, the accessory, which synthesizes the personality, for example magnifying glasses to photograph Dali or a record player for Marlene Dietrich. I have a lot of admiration for people like Doisneau or Cartier-Bresson, but they have the leisure to wait hours or days for the magic moment. With fashion and the stars it's different. It's not the same job! ".

Imagination and necessity launched Willy Rizzo into the world of furniture design. As a photographer of Playboys and Starlets, he had a ready-made customer base eager to build their living quarters around an ultra-modern Rizzo piece and items that remain as timeless as his images.

Rizzo's original venture into furniture design began in Rome and took place during an often reported visit to a Roman hair salon on the Piazza di Spagna in 1966. By testing the hairdresser's knowledge of local real estate agents, he ended up signing a six-month lease on an abandoned commercial apartment, barely habitable and without running water. Rizzo quickly set about turning the empty office into a living space, complete with brown and gold walls and custom-designed sofas, coffee tables, consoles and hi-fi storage units.

Using a small group of local artisans recommended by the hairdresser who pointed him toward the accommodation, he completed the customised apartment, which acted as a template of sorts for the majority of his commissions to come.

Though never his intention to become a furniture designer, Rizzo's friends, clients and contacts, many forming the upper crust of the fashion and film industries, fell in love with his creations and he was swamped with orders and requests.

Fittingly, Rizzo's first commission came from Ghighi Cassini, the American Hearst newspaper columnist and socialite who coined the term "jet set" to describe the socialites and socialite lifestyle that Fellini immortalised in La Dolce Vita. Willy's work for Cassini effortlessly blended neoclassicism with modern styles and its success brought a swathe of Italian high-society to him.

Willy Rizzo was uniquely placed as a designer for the Dolce Vita, being himself a part of the world for which he was designing. Infamous playboys, such as Rodolfo Parisi, Gigli Rizzi and Franco Rapetti, were some of his earliest clients. Salvador Dalí commissioned a number of pieces, as did Brigitte Bardot for the interior of La Madrague in St. Tropez. Being a consummate playboy of the era, Rizzo's client list is testament to how close his furniture was to the mark.

By 1968, Willy's work was in constant demand, leading to the setting up of his own firm and the establishment of a factory just outside Rome at Tivoli, which employed over 150 staff, including the original team from his early apartment transformation.

Over the following ten years, Rizzo designed and produced more than thirty pieces of furniture, including the famous steel-banded travertine dining tables and bronze table lamps, all of which were handmade. He opened boutiques across France and Europe and had points of sale in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles. However, in 1978, Rizzo gave it all up to return to photography, his first love.

Willy Rizzo's furniture design channelled the sophistication of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, his pieces combining clean, simple lines with bold geometric forms and a delicate handling of materials. His lack of formal training in furniture design placed him outside Italy's strong, indigenous design traditions, making his style utterly unique at the time.

While Rizzo bought into the modernist principles of functionality and simplified forms, he deliberately avoided mass production, modern materials and industrial design, despite designers such as Giò Ponti endorsing the movement. Rizzo remained focused on a doctrine of traditional materials and craftsmanship, a response to the contemporary cultural environment, as opposed to current design trends.

"It was never about recreating classic styles in modern furniture, that wasn’t the point. It was about creating something new for a traditional setting," Rizzo explains.

Willy Rizzo's furniture is now widely exhibited, notably in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He returned to furniture design for a period in the late 1980s and then again in the mid-2000s, in collaboration with Paul Smith and Mallett Antiques. In 2010, at the age of 82, he opened his first gallery in Paris with the help of his wife, Elsa and his son, Willy Rizzo, Jr.

Starsociety, editor Schirmer Mosel, 1994
Mes stars : L'Album secret de Willy Rizzo, text of Jean-Pierre de Lucovich, editor Filipacchi, 2003 (ISBN 978-2850187728)
Willy Rizzo, Contrejour, 2014
Chanel by Willy Rizzo, texts of Fabrice Gaignault, Edmonde Charles-Roux, Olivier Saillard, Arnold de Contades et Danniel Rangel, editor Minerve, 2015

• https://www.willyrizzo.com/biographie-willy-rizzo.html

• www.willyrizzo.com — Official site
• Mid-Century Online - Magazine | Willy Rizzo: The essence of La Dolce Vita