Rolando Hettner coffee table made in Italy 1950

Astonishing coffee or side table designed and hand-made by Rolando Hettner in Italy in 1950s. Made of colourful glazed ceramic shaped like an ocean plant or coral. From the top, you’ll see two circles and an infinity shape in the middle, all smoothly sculpted to the three freeform feet. The vibrant colours include ocean blue, sky blue, gold/orange like a sunset, stone grays, and even coral pink. It really captures the atmosphere of the Mediterranean landscape. The table is finished with a round glass top. It’s more like an art piece that serves as a table. In excellent original condition.

In Milan, Hettner worked as an illustrator for the magazine of ElioVittorini, called “II Politecnico”, but the salary was so meager it was necessary to find work elsewhere. When an important manufacturer of ceramics at the factory Gabbianelli, offered him a job he accepted it. This allowed him to work in an area of art that he had learned in Germany, prior to studying to be a painter. Due to the deprivations of the exile and his clandestine activities, he was eventually forced to abandon this promising activity when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

After spending some months in a Sanatorium in Cernusco, he settled down with José Repuzzi near Como, where they bought an old flour mill and transformed it into a ceramics factory. In the fifties, after he had received his Italian citizenship, he was considered one of the best ceramists in Italy, and in the 1951 he was conferred a gold medal of the Triennial of Milan. In 1958, he wrote a section for the magazine “La Ceramica” (The Ceramic) called, “I consigli di Hettner” (The Advice of Hettner), which addressed the new generation of Italian Ceramicists. Despite the prestige gained with this publication, he returned to painting.