David Cruz heard about a grouping of Carlo Bugatti furniture that surfaced in Mexico. He and Blackman had long admired the Bugatti family. Ettore Bugatti designed cars, and his brother Rembrandt was an artist renowned for his bronze animal sculptures, but it was their father, Carlo, the Milanese designer and creator of experimental art nouveau furnishings, who piqued their interest.
Bugatti's use of organic materials like parchment, vellum, bone, and pounded copper embellished with decorative details—such as tassels and hand-painted images—gave his furnishings a timeless, almost futuristic quality that echoes a mix of Moorish, Moroccan, and Cyrillic motfis.
After securing a hold on the pieces, Cruz and Blackman flew to Mexico City where they met with decorative arts dealer Emmanuel Picault, who had acquired an important collection of Bugatti's work. All the pieces came from one single estate where, many years before, the proprietor—like many members of the Mexican upper classes—traveled to Europe in search of unique pieces to grace their estates.
What they saw was extraordinary. A tall plant stand commissioned around 1906 by the Marchesa Luisa Casati captured their imagination. Casati, an Italian heiress known to parade around with leashed cheetahs and wear snakes as jewelry, was a patron and muse to many artists of her time, including her friend Bugatti. This amazing stand had the name "Casati" in metal prominently inlaid into the base, and Cruz and Blackman couldn't help but envision her coming home, enveloped in snakes, as she glided upstairs to retire for the evening.
Blackman and Cruz planned an opening party for the Bugatti collection, and to their surprise, it was well attended, even though it was September 12, 2001, just one day after the World Trade Center tragedy—a testament that beauty and art can be a salve during tumultuous times.
Stacie Stukin, excerpted from Beauty & Mischief
[Bugatti was] the first in Italy to create, and not just to dream, a modern style of furniture.
Alfredo Melani
Adam Blackman and David Cruz officially embarked on their venture, Blackman Cruz, in 1993; in the three decades since, they have created—and helped create—countless worlds, purveying objects of beauty and curiosity (dare we say magic?) culled from around the world. Operating from Los Angeles, the pair first showed their wares in a West Hollywood showroom on La Cienega and, in 2007, moved into their current home on Highland Avenue—an expansive space that was formerly the infamous gay nightclub Probe, known not least for basically playing itself in American Gigolo.
If discussing patina and provenance over a once booze-soaked bar seems incongruous, one might argue that such incongruity is characteristic of both Los Angeles and Blackman Cruz. At the center of the “dream factory,” worlds collide—and collision is perhaps what Blackman and Cruz do best. The pair’s “odd couple partnership,” as the New York Times put it, is the force behind an aesthetic sense that is delightfully difficult to pigeonhole. As the title of their recently released book Beauty & Mischief: The Design Alchemy of Blackman Cruz suggests, Blackman Cruz’s eye together encompasses the serious, sexy, and silly, and the myriad permutations therein. You might find, as one does in this auction, a stunning 1902 Carlo Bugatti chair (itself a treatise on material alchemy) next to an antique drum-playing rabbit automaton (restored to working order by an aerospace engineer), or a painstakingly beaded papoose from Borneo alongside an iconic mid-century modern sofa by Poul Kjærjolm, or a softly glowing snake lamp by Frank Gehry. Or impossibly elegant Gazelle lounges by Dan Johnson, or...Or. Or. Or.
Significantly and much to their credit, Blackman and Cruz have not shied away from certain elements of the archetypal curiosity shop. “We’re merchants,” their website declares. “We sell life enhancers.” In leaning into the longstanding lineage of rarity-purveyors, they show that they recognize the preciousness of curiosity itself—and the adjacent elements of surprise and fantasy. They let themselves be led by the search, and the excitement of the find is gleefully passed to their audience. That said, there are certain figures who serve as touchstones for the pair, designers whose sensibilities mesh well with Blackman Cruz’s vision: Bugatti is among them, as well as Pepe Mendoza and Arturo Pani, both from Mexico City and featured amply in the collection offered here. And then there is the Blackman Cruz Workshop, founded in 1998 by Blackman, Cruz, and creative director Lika Moore, offering limited edition lighting and furniture; among the works selected here are two metalworked lamps by Moore and the uncannily “dripping” Leary marble table.
Design is typically a studied thing, where precision takes precedence. Blackman Cruz breathes a little refreshing chaos into the discipline, finding a comfortable perch amidst a multiplicity of exciting tensions: ancient and contemporary, scientific and spiritual, restrained and resplendent. In our era of ubiquitous quantification and optimization, Blackman Cruz extends an invitation to not be afraid of what draws us in—even if it can’t be named or measured. In other words, to revel in the possibilities of enchantment.
Carlo Bugatti 1856–1940
Patriarch of the famous Bugatti family, Carlo was an innovative designer in turn-of-the-century Italy. From furniture to painting to jewelry, he envisioned no definitive line between fine and applied art, resulting in refined designs with distinctively artistic characteristics. Allusions to various cultures and time periods make Bugatti’s pieces both historically referential and ground-breaking. He is most recognized for the unique combination of modern forms and decorative Moorish details found in his work. Easily identified as Bugatti’s, these combinations differentiated his work from that of his contemporaries and a testament to his distinct style came in 1893 when the firm of Merroni and Fossati displayed pieces called Bugotto at the Chicago World’s Fair.
The late 1880s proved to be an important time for Bugatti—he was included in both the Industrial Arts Exhibition in Milan and the Italian Exhibition at London’s Earl’s Court. His furniture dating from this period (1888-1900) utilized ebonized wood heavily decorated with metal inlays. Successful from the start, Bugatti was given a diploma of honor for his pieces in the London show and by 1898 he had opened his own workshop in Milan.
The 1902 Exposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna in Turin marked another public presentation of Bugatti’s furniture. For the exhibition, Bugatti designed pieces covered almost entirely in parchment, hiding the joints and details and giving the appearance of solid, unified forms. The arched lines of his earlier style were replaced with almost full circles, while detailed metal plaques remained integral components to his designs.
Following his move from Milan to Paris in 1904, Bugatti's professional direction changed. The Turin exposition marked his last phase of furniture design. In Milan it had been his primary focus, but in Paris he began exploring other objects. By 1905 he was described as a sculptor and before his death in 1940, he went on to produce jewelry, musical instruments, paintings and architecture. Bugatti’s highly innovative designs were radical for borrowing styles and symbols from around the world and emblematized a defining time in modern design when functional considerations were displaced by expressions of style and personality.
