David Bowie and the Modernism Museum

The Modernism Museum located in Mount Dora Florida is dedicated to the Memphis Group founded by Ettore Sottsass in 1980. The Memphis group was comprised of Italian designers and architects and focused on creating bright highly stylized lighting, furniture, glass, and textiles. The group was very unconventional and at times viewed their work as more artistic than functional. Key to their design was the use of bright colors, unusual textures, and materials inspired by the Art Deco movement of the 1950s. Memphis sought to counter the mid-century modern design of the 1950s and 1960s and the minimalism of the 1970s. The group was made up of approximately 20 designers and exhibited annually from 1981 to 1988.

David Bowie was a major collector of the objects designed by the Memphis group. In 2016 after Davids Bowie's passing the Modernism Museum purchased a large number of his pieces at the Sotheby auction. The museum has 75+ examples from the Memphis group works many of which were personally owned by David and is the largest group of Memphis objects at any American museum.