All in the Family

Throughout history, a combination of genetics and early training has now and then produced families of successful artists in several generations--most of whom tended to follow similar technical paths. Not the Bugattis. Four family members in three generations were highly successful, but each in his own special field.

Carlo Bugatti was born in Milan in 1856, the son of an artisan engaged in the building trades. As a youth he studied at the Brera Academy in that city, where he is said to have received training in architecture and design. In the 1880s he began to design furniture of distinctive style that was produced in Milanese workshops under his supervision. He used materials previously uncommon in furniture making: veneers of parchment and fringes and tassels made of silk and leather. Carlo exhibited his furniture frequently in northern Europe and soon gained an international reputation for his work. An apogee of fame for his furnishings was achieved at an international exposition of contemporary decorative arts held in Turin in 1902. There he exhibited several room-like settings that enjoyed great acclaim and were widely publicized.

Carlo Bugatti had two sons; Ettore was born in 1881, and Rembrandt followed in 1884. By 1900 both sons had begun to enjoy a significant degree of success in their chosen fields. Ettore can best be described as an automotive engineer, though he learned mechanics on his own by modifying the work of others and frequently relied upon his aesthetic intuition to determine the character of his designs. As a youth Ettore worked as an engineer for several German automobile manufacturers, and in 1909 established his own factory at Molsheim in Alsace (then part of Germany, but after World War I transferred to France). Here he created the racing and luxury sports and touring cars that became the standards of the industry in the 1920s and '30s.

Rembrandt, Carlo's younger son, also enjoyed early success, but as a sculptor, particularly of animal subjects in bronze. While still in his teens and working in Milan he created representations of domestic animals that were full of life and the suggestion of movement. This early work was made under the influence of the Russian sculptor Prince Paul Troubetzkoy, who lived in Milan in the 1890s and was a friend of his father.

Sometime between 1902 and 1904 the rest of the Bugatti family joined Ettore in northern Europe, but Carlo and Rembrandt settled in Paris. There, the emphasis in Rembrandt's sculpture shifted to the wild beasts which he was able to study first at the zoo of the Jardin des Plantes, and later at the even larger and more famous collection of fauna in the Antwerp zoo. His work soon enjoyed wide acclaim, and he developed a peripatetic mode of existence, dividing his time between Paris, Antwerp, and his brother's home in Alsace. The start of war disrupted all of this, and after a period of wandering, Rembrandt returned to Paris where he found his old life in shambles, with the gallery where he exhibited closed and his parents removed to Pierrefonds, some 60 miles outside the capital. A period of severe depression set in, and in 1916 Rembrandt committed suicide at the age of 31. His last works, less realistic than earlier but profoundly expressive, are perhaps his finest.

At the beginning of his residence in France, Carlo Bugatti enjoyed a few years of creative activity during which the accomplishments of his son Rembrandt assumed a significant place. Carlo began to model in plaster designs for vessels, most of which were to be cast in silver. Animals supplied the dominant motifs for these pieces, but instead of the realism of Rembrandt's then current work, Carlo created fantastic images not always recognizable as based on living beasts. Some suggest the petrified remains of extinct animals. The Galerie Hébrard served as agents for Carlo's work in metal, and he had an exhibition there late in 1907. He also produced some furniture after moving to France. Technically it reflected French traditions in its employment of external veneers of marquetry and three-dimensional cast and gilded metal ornaments. In these late works, Carlo became obsessed with ovoid forms, and they can be found in virtually everything he produced after moving to France.

Ettore's Alsatian automobile manufacturing was disrupted by the war. He moved to Paris and occupied himself with war-related projects, mostly to do with aviation. After the war, he returned to Molsheim and revived his factory. There followed the period of his greatest success as an automobile manufacturer. His specialty was racing cars and more domesticated versions of these vehicles, which were described as sports cars.

Ettore Bugatti had several children. His eldest son, Jean, was born in 1909 in Cologne, just before the family moved to Molsheim. From earliest childhood he was closely involved in his father's automobile manufacturing operations. Beginning in the late 1920s, Jean was in large measure responsible for the design of the coachwork of Bugatti cars. The sweeping curves of their fenders and the almost futuristic body shapes of the most radical sports cars were of his devising. It can be safely stated that the elegance of Jean's designs for the bodies of Bugattis in the 1930s contributed as much as his father's engineering skills to the great reputation that their cars have enjoyed, both when first built and ever since.

Jean Bugatti was killed in an automobile accident in 1939. Carlo died in April 1940, just before the German invasion of France. Once again, war disrupted the manufacture of Bugatti cars, but this time subsequent efforts to revive them proved unsuccessful. In essence, all aspects of Bugatti creative activity ended with World War II.

Each of the four Bugattis was very much his own man, with special talents and a distinct personality. None attempted to emulate or follow in the footsteps of another. But at the same time, there is a certain commonality of interests discernible in their work. Carlo's focus on aesthetic values seems to have informed the work of his descendants. His obsession with ovoid forms was probably the source of the similarly shaped radiator grilles of Bugatti automobiles. Carlo's own later work in cast silver seems technically, if not stylistically, dependent on Rembrandt's experience as a sculptor. In later life, when his automobiles had achieved popularity and profitability, Ettore became the greatest collector of his brother's work, and adapted Rembrandt's small sculpture of a rearing elephant for the radiator ornament of his most luxurious model, the Royale, built about 1930. The Bugattis were individually endowed with talents that paralleled and complemented one another. The successes that each enjoyed contributed to the well-deserved renown of the family.

From a Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine article by Henry Hawley, Curator of Renaissance and Later Decorative Arts and Sculpture