Romeo Rega

ROMEO REGA, (1925 - 1984, Rome).
Side table.
Chrome-plated brass, smoked glass.
1970s.
In good general condition.
Measurements: 32 x 37 x 40 cm.

Romeo Rega was a furniture designer and master iron forger. He followed in the footsteps of his father Pietro, also a craftsman. He was apprenticed to a master blacksmith and forger from whom he learned the art of iron. In the late 1940s he opened a small store in Trastevere, Rome, where he began working with wrought iron, designing and making gates, railings and furniture.
In 1957 he opened his first studio where he collaborated with talented masters of iron and wrought iron. In 1959 he received an important commission from Cinecittà to design and build the chariots for the film Ben-Hur. His clients included celebrities from the world of cinema and show business, such as Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Rascel and his wife Giuditta Saltarini, Massimo Ranieri and Renzo Arbore.
During the 1970s, Romeo Rega was part of a group of Italian designers who combined inventiveness and elegance with a strong modernist influence. Working with Willy Rizzo and Gabriella Crespi, they championed Modernist Glam, still very much in vogue today. He began to apply traditional iron working methods with materials such as brass, steel and lucite. Four-rod tables, zeta consoles and obelisk lamps are some of his most famous pieces. The Romeo Rega trademark, with the double "R", was first used in 1969 and symbolizes the move into the 1970s. The company manufactured until 1981.