When Italian architect Ettore Sottsass launched the controversial collection of furnishings known as Memphis at the Milan Furniture Fair in 1981, the design world was shocked. “It appalled some and amused others but put everyone attending the fair in a state of high excitement,” Suzanne Slesin wrote in The New York Times after the debut of the colorful, photogenic pieces designed by Sottsass and a group of young talents including Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi, and Nathalie Du Pasquier.

Seemingly overnight, the extravagant furnishings flew into the private collections of David Bowie, Karl Lagerfeld, and other international tastemakers. Suddenly, Sottsass—then 64 years old and more than three decades into his career—became synonymous with the radical Memphis ethos and the movement’s poster child, his ecstatic, anthropomorphic Carlton room divider.