Ugo Mulas met Arnaldo Pomodoro in the late 1950s, and a friendship and mutual understanding immediately developed between the two, destined to last a lifetime. Pomodoro, as Mulas always said, was the artist he had photographed most often.
In 1962, Olivetti commissioned Mulas to produce a photo essay on women in the factory, where he met Ettore Sottsass, the company’s leading designer.
The relationship between Ugo Mulas, Ettore Sottsass and Arnaldo Pomodoro is a prime example of the profound interplay, within post-war Italian culture, between photography, art and design.

This book accompanies the exhibition at the Tornabuoni Art Gallery in Paris (20 October 2026 – 9 January 2027) which, through the lens of Ugo Mulas and by comparing the works of Arnaldo Pomodoro and Ettore Sottsass, explores the connection between three figures who revolutionised the Milan art scene from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Alberto Salvadori, an art historian and curator, is director of ICA Milano, an institution he founded in 2019, and has been director of the Archivio Mulas since 2021. From 2003 to 2009, he was curator of the general catalogue of the Modern Art Gallery at Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and from 2007 to 2020 he was director of the Osservatorio per le Arti Contemporanee at the Fondazione Cr Firenze. From 2009 to 2016, he was artistic director of the Marino Marini Museum in Florence, whilst from 2016 to 2022 he curated the Modern and Decades sections of miart.

Ivan Mietton is a specialist in Ettore Sottsass, a curator of major exhibitions and an expert in French design. From 2002 to 2005, he was curator of the Design Department at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In 2008, he founded his own interior design studio, IMDA.