MARIO DAL FABBRO SCULPTURE
MARIO DAL FABBRO: AN INTRODUCTION Mario Dal Fabbro was born in 1913 in Cappella Maggiore in Treviso, Italy, into a family of furniture-making craftsmen. He studied in Venice at the Institute for Decorative and Industrial Arts and at the Regio Magistero Artistico, majoring in art and design and graduating with honors in 1938. Trained as a sculptor, his belief that beauty could be conferred even to implements of everyday life allowed him to transition easily into the field of design. Dal Fabbro took an active role in his family’s furniture business, as designer, craftsman and administrator. He mastered the design and construction of all types of furniture, and moved on to accepting commissions for private individuals and furniture houses. He began researching all manner of modern materials and technologies, making everything from children’s furniture to automatic wooden mechanisms, and wrote about his discoveries. Throughout his career, he referred to himself as designer, writer, craftsman and sculptor.
A life-long penchant for new adventures—evident in both his work and his diverse interests—took Dal Fabbro to New York City in 1948. Excited to explore this post-war landscape of unlimited opportunities, he was armed with a great will to succeed and very little else, including an extremely limited knowledge of English. He knocked on the doors of publishing houses, boldly offering up his latest manuscript. A short year later, his "Modern Furniture: Design and Construction" made it into print. Ultimately, he published 12 books on related subjects, as well as pieces in the New York Times, House & Garden and several other international publications.
Meanwhile, Dal Fabbro continued to work as a designer. As department head at J.G. Furniture in New York and Quakertown, Pennsylvania, he was in charge of all planning and technical developments for the design and installation of seating facilities in auditoriums, theaters and lecture halls. He also worked for Knoll and Paul McCobb Design Associates. Increasingly fascinated by the application of sculptural forms and principles to furniture design, he gradually returned to his original passion: sculpting.
By 1968, Dal Fabbro was dedicating himself full-time to his sculpture, applying his extraordinary manual skills, technical expertise and in-depth
knowledge of wood to the creation of f luid and dynamic shapes. The freedom of his abstract forms seduces the eye, enticing the viewer to follow their rhythmic lines. His connection to the wood is evident in the way he highlights the natural beauty of its density, color and grain. He confers malleability upon the material that shows his sensitivity to its texture and tensile strength. The result is the constant interaction of solid and void, mass and movement, for pieces that are supremely architectonic and structured yet very sensuous and tactile.
As the artist himself describes it, “My preoccupation with sculpture is not with the volume and mass per se, but with the lines that delimit and circumscribe them. My goal is to represent spatially the complexity of profiles, the dimensions of forms which constantly seem to rearrange themselves in space and set themselves between the empty space and the concrete form.�
MARIO DAL FABBRO SCULPTURE
FIGURE IM AGE. 1981
DOUBLE SHAPE NO.3. 1980
02
03
UNTITLED. 1969
SHAPE WITH HOLE. 1983
04
05
CONTR ASTO. 1980
UNTITLED. 1981
06
07
UNTITLED. 1984
BIRDS AT PLAY. 1972
10
11
THREE SQUARES. 1971
CONSTRUCTION NO.5. 1970
12
13
UNTITLED. 1978
UNTITLED. 1979
14
15
UNTITLED. 1982
BIG. 1982
16
17
UNTITLED. 1982
DIRECTION OPTICAL. 1968
20
21
DESERT VISION. 1969
CURVED SHAPE. 1985
22
23
NO. 20. 1980
UNTITLED. 1986
24
25
CONTINUITY. 1972
UNTITLED. 1977
26
27
UNTITLED. 1983
UNTITLED. 1978
30
31
UNTITLED. 1982
UNTITLED. 1980
32
33
CATASTROPHE. 1982
SPACESHIP. 1982
34
35
02
03
04
05
12
14
13
15
FIGURE IMAGE
DOUBLE SHAPE No.3
UNTITLED
SHAPE WITH HOLE
THREE SQUARES
CONSTRUCTION NO.5
UNTITLED
UNTITLED
Carved wood USA, 1981 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.5
Carved wood USA, 1980 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.34
Carved wood USA, 1969 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.28
Carved wood USA, 1983 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.29; bears an original tag
Carved wood USA, c. 1971 Signed; bears an original tag
Carved wood USA, 1970 Signed and dated
Carved ebonized wood USA, c. 1978 Signed and inscribed A.37
Carved wood USA, 1979 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.45
HEIGHT: 20 ½” WIDTH: 9” DEPTH: 9”
HEIGHT: 10” WIDTH: 10” DEPTH: 18”
HEIGHT: 12” WIDTH: 15” DEPTH: 4 ½”
HEIGHT: 23” WIDTH: 5 ¾” DEPTH: 8”
HEIGHT: 12 ¼” WIDTH: 7 ½” DEPTH: 7 ¾”
06
10
07
HEIGHT: 16” WIDTH: 15” DEPTH: 6”
11
HEIGHT: 22” WIDTH: 18” DEPTH: 6”
16
HEIGHT: 25 ½” WIDTH: 21” DEPTH: 14 ½”
20
17
21
CONTRASTO
UNTITLED
UNTITLED
BIRDS AT PLAY
UNTITLED
BIG
UNTITLED
DIRECTION OPTICAL
Carved wood USA, 1980 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.17
Carved wood USA, 1981 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.13
Carved wood USA, 1984 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.43
Carved wood USA, 1972 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.3
Carved ebonized wood USA, c. 1982 Signed
Carved ebonized wood USA, 1982 Signed and dated
Carved painted wood USA, 1982 Signed and dated
Carved wood USA, 1968 Signed and dated
HEIGHT: 18” WIDTH: 11” DEPTH: 10”
HEIGHT: 24” WIDTH: 7” DEPTH: 6 ¾”
HEIGHT: 13” WIDTH: 8” DEPTH: 4”
HEIGHT: 19” WIDTH: 22” DEPTH: 12 ½”
HEIGHT: 15” WIDTH: 5” DEPTH: 7”
HEIGHT: 16” WIDTH: 5” DEPTH: 4 ¼”
HEIGHT: 6 ½” WIDTH: 16” DEPTH: 4”
HEIGHT: 17 ½” WIDTH: 25” DEPTH: 16”
36
37
22
23
24
DESERT VISION
CURVED SHAPE
NO. 20
UNTITLED
Carved wood USA, 1969 Signed, dated, and inscribed C.4; bears an original title label
Carved wood USA, 1985 Signed and dated
Carved partially ebonized wood USA, c. 1980 Signed
Carved partially ebonized wood USA, 1986 Signed, dated, and inscribed I.6
HEIGHT: 20” WIDTH: 16” DEPTH: 13”
HEIGHT: 11 ½” WIDTH: 13 ½” DEPTH: 12 ½”
HEIGHT: 36 ½” WIDTH: 19” DEPTH: 16”
25
HEIGHT: 15 ½” WIDTH: 12” DEPTH: 10 ½”
26
27
30
31
CONTINUITY
UNTITLED
UNTITLED
UNTITLED
Carved wood USA, 1972 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.2; bears an original title label
Carved wood USA, 1977 Signed and dated
Carved wood USA, 1983 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.33
Carved wood USA, 1978 Signed, dated, and inscribed I.3
HEIGHT: 16” WIDTH: 5” DEPTH: 4 ¾”
HEIGHT: 20” WIDTH: 11” DEPTH: 8”
HEIGHT: 18” WIDTH: 10” DEPTH: 8”
HEIGHT: 22” WIDTH: 23” DEPTH: 16”
38
32
33
34
35
UNTITLED
UNTITLED
CATASTROPHE
SPACESHIP
Carved wood USA, 1982 Signed and dated
Carved wood USA, c. 1980 Signed
Carved Wood USA, 1982 Signed, dated, and inscribed F.4
HEIGHT: 13 ¼” WIDTH: 2 ¼” DEPTH: 2 ¼”
HEIGHT: 12” WIDTH: 2 ¾” DEPTH: 2 ¼”
Carved wood USA, 1982 Signed and dated; bears an original title label HEIGHT: 21 ½” WIDTH: 16” DEPTH: 14”
39
HEIGHT: 17” WIDTH: 15” DEPTH: 9 ¾”
MAISON GERARD 43 & 53 East Tenth St. New York NY 10003 T 212 674 7611 F 212 475 6314 maisongerard.com
Gerardus Widdershoven and Benoist F. Drut would like to extend their sincere thanks to: Laura Silverman Christopher Knight Heather Kristensen Margaret Kim Julia Hartshorn Diego Heredia Photo: Robert Levin Design: Mother