Friends & Collectors

"My small objects narrate the world," says Sobrero, and with these worlds he glosses the particular spell that his art holds for writers and bibliophiles, and for anyone who lives by the magic of books. As always, life imitates art: Sobrero enjoys the admiration and friendship of some of the most highly respected literati of Europe.

Italo Calvino and Sobrero are fellow travelers in the cosmos. The two artists have had endless conversations about the desire to shrink the world…

The friendship with Franco Maria Ricci,
The friendship with Franco Maria Ricci is a story that begins fifteen years ago, when Sobrero first began building the miniature libraries, having worked as a painter and conceptual artist in other media for many years before that.
    Mita de Benedetti chose one of Sobrero's miniature libraries as a gift for her friend FMR. The publisher was immediately fascinated by the extraordinary object, and was moved to create the first publication about the minima libraria, in collaboration with Messaggiere Italiane. The success of this book led to a second, and then to a remarkable exhibition. At the main FMR bookstore in Rome, surrounded by large-as-life volumes in real bookshelves, the publisher hosted the diminutive libraries in a show that was itself a work of conceptual art.
    Sobrero's libraries have since been shown in museums in the USA, Switzerland, and Japan, as well as in exclusive shops from London's Bond Street to LA's Rodeo Drive. But the relationship with FMR remains vital. Each miniature library from Ottavia's Suitcase is accompanied by a fine booklet of critical essays on Sobrero's work, with exquisite color photographs, published by Franco Maria Ricci.

Dada Rosso, critic and journalist from Torino, offers her reflections on why writers love Ettore Sobrero's tiny bookcases…