Giovanni E Angelo Sello Biography
Giovanni Sello (Udine, 1835–1909) had learned the trade of carpenter at the Vienna Arsenal. After his military service he opened a workshop in via Gemona in 1868 where building carpentry, window frames, doors and agricultural tools were carried out. In 1878 he participated with a ginner in an exhibition of agricultural machinery in Paris. These events were always a stimulus for him to improve production which, from that of Turin in 1884, included square and solid furniture for domestic use. In 1907 the business, moved to Piazza Primo Maggio, was mechanized with electricity. There were numerous furnishings for homes and shops. From 1894 all the sons entered the workshop, each with his specific role: Angelo as a designer, Luigi as an upholsterer, Antonino as a cabinetmaker, Enrico as a bronzesmith, Umberto as a decorator and Ottavio as a surveyor, while his daughter Ida worked with educational toys . Upon Giovanni's death in 1909, Angelo (1881 - 1973), born in 1881, became the owner of the furniture factory, where he renewed production. He attended the School of Arts and Crafts, cultivating friendships with the major artists and artisans of the period, including Alberto Calligaris, Aurelio Mistruzzi, Carlo Burghart, Arturo Collavini. Having graduated in 1903, he continued to teach at the school until 1909, building a rich library, which testifies to his lively cultural interests. In 1903 he participated in the Udine Regional Exhibition with a dining room inspired by the models of the “Aemilia Ars”; in 1906 at the international one in Milan; in 1907 at the Decorative Art Exhibition of Udine, until being awarded at the Turin Exposition of 1911. In this first period of research Angelo tried his hand at elegant and supple art nouveau structures, not without eclectic revivals. From 1910 he decidedly oriented himself towards the square shapes of the Viennese secession, the most suitable for the mechanized processing of the furniture factory. In the 1920s, Angelo's furnishings, which he designed alone, disdaining any collaboration, continued to imitate German examples; However, the dimensions of the modules and the quantity of decorations increased. Particularly significant was Angelo's presence at the I Biennale of Decorative Arts in Monza (1923), where he set up the Friulian rooms, and at the III (1927), while in 1925 he designed the council room for the Chamber of Commerce. Between 1927 and 1928 the Sello furniture factory took part in a series of public competitions announced by ENAPI, in which the project for the popular furnishings of Garbatella in Rome stood out. In the 1930s, Angelo refused to collaborate with architects and, unable to participate in public competitions, he fell back on private clients. The need to have an expensive warehouse of wood, the almost obsessive attention to finishing, the weight of tradition in a changed society, forced him to close the furniture factory in 1951. The building was donated by Angelo, Luigi and Antonino Stello to the municipality so that it would become an art school that would continue the artisan tradition. Angelo died in 1973.
