Rolf Sachs is a philanthropist, a gossip hero, and a favorite of gallerists. Invents and makes items for collectors.
Among designers, he is a white crow. Industrial design ignores but gives all of itself to limited edition items. Socially absolutely unique: rich, well-educated, well-born. Rolf is related to the owners of Opel, and his grandfather had the largest ball-bearing factory in Europe. His father Günter Sachs was known as an athlete, then as a director and documentary photographer, then he headed a scientific institute for the study of astrology in terms of mathematics and statistics. The famous playboy courted Brigitte Bardot – circling in a helicopter, scattering millions of roses for her. Rolf, who also inherited an interest in oriental women from his father, is married to an Iranian (at one time Gunther Sachs had a stormy affair with the Iranian queen Surya Esfandiari).
Rolf Sachs began his career as an investor banker, then devoted himself to art and design, but remained an influential figure in the world of finance. Today, Rolf makes pieces of furniture and extravagant lamps that resemble either flasks in anatomical laboratories or the apparatus of medieval alchemists. He is passionate about photography and works quite actively as a set designer, preferring opera and ballet performances. Together with his wife Mariam, he implemented the Wild Emperor concept photo project: the couple installed a camera that continuously filmed the Wilder Kaiser mountain range for a year, making 10 and a half frames per minute …
Rolf is an active resident of the town of St. Moritz, where he has a stadium – the 1928 Bauhaus-style Olympic building, which he restored and rebuilt into a luxurious villa. Supports local luge club, and founded annual competitions. He is also on the boards of trustees of Sotheby’s auction house, the Tate Modern, and the London Design Museum.
![Fortis Frisson watch.
Steel, silicone.](https://i0.wp.com/cmf-trend.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/rolf-sachs-artist-designer-millionaire-2.webp?resize=652%2C977&ssl=1)
Steel, silicone.
![The Journey of a Drop project.
V&A Museum.
London, 2012.](https://i0.wp.com/cmf-trend.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/rolf-sachs-artist-designer-millionaire-3.webp?resize=652%2C982&ssl=1)
V&A Museum.
London, 2012.
![Chess Weighing up the Competition.
Brass, teak, felt.
Libby Sellers Gallery.](https://i0.wp.com/cmf-trend.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/rolf-sachs-artist-designer-millionaire-4.webp?resize=652%2C448&ssl=1)
Brass, teak, felt.
Libby Sellers Gallery.
Antique objects, devices, and mechanisms clearly excite the imagination of Rolf Sachs. Among his works, a stack of newspapers tied with a rope cast from wax is a real monument to the outgoing printed publications. Curiosities Dome lamps are glass domes with the skeleton of a murre bird as if brought from a 17th-century cabinet of curiosities. A shovel with a large hole on a metal body Sisyph – for Sisyphean labors in the garden. As a rule, he imitates inventory or repeats classical images in modern materials, but sometimes he simply works with antique gizmos. Such, for example, are chess made by order of the London gallery owner Libby Sellers.
![Lamp Chemie No. 1. Metal.](https://i0.wp.com/cmf-trend.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/rolf-sachs-artist-designer-millionaire-5.webp?resize=652%2C858&ssl=1)
In the spring of 2016 in Zurich, in The Dolder Grand Hotel, the Saltz restaurant with interiors by Rolf Sachs opened its doors. And at the exhibition PAD Paris (31.03-3.04.2016), the German gallery Amman exhibits his signature photographs of mountain peaks in 2013.