Cooper Hewitt says...
Industrial designer and product developer George James Sowden (British, b. 1942) had the distinction of being the only British member of Memphis Group (Milan, Italy, founded 1981), the postmodern design and architecture firm founded by Ettore Sottsass Jr. (Italian, 1917–2007). Sowden left for Italy in 1970 to work as a design consultant at Olivetti where he met Sottsass. While Sowden and his wife Nathalie du Pasquier were not present at the meeting in late 1980 when the concept for Memphis was first conceived, both he and Nathalie attended the second meeting where drawings and ideas were exchanged between the group's members. Memphis had its first opening in Milan in September 1981 where they introduced radical new concepts for furniture, lamps, ceramics, and textiles. The group’s designs presented a direct challenge to the prevailing Modernist austerity through an inspired use of radical new shapes and proportions, combining bright colors, geometric patterns, and unconventional materials such as laminates for furniture. Described as decadent, provocative and renegade, Memphis came to define the prevailing international aesthetic for design in the 1980s.
When Memphis broke up in 1988, George Sowden continued operations at his own firm SowdenDesign, founded in 1981. His work at Olivetti also continued with designs for electronics such as fax machines, printers and credit card readers. Product designs for kitchen timers, calculators and clocks were developed in the 1990s for Italian manufacturer Alessi. Sowden accepted additional commissions from the wallpaper giant Rasch and designed several pieces for Swid Powell, the architect-driven, postmodern producer of ceramics, silverware and glass.
In 2011, after forty years in design, Sowden introduced the Sowden Softbrew™ system for coffee and tea. Rejecting complex equipment for a simple infusion method, Softbrew™ was the first product to carry the Sowden name. For Sowden Table, he designed plates, bowls, cups, and saucers made in simple shapes from the traditional weight, pure porcelain of Chaozhou, China.
