Genius. Iconoclast. Visionary. Magician. These words have been used to describe the inimitable

This glass and oak trestle table, 1949, reached a record price for 20th-century furniture: $3.8 million.

Carlo Mollino (1905–73), interior designer, architect, automobile designer, aviator, set designer, ski instructor and photographer. This modern Renaissance man’s biomorphic, Surrealist-inspired furniture is among the rarest and most sought-after in the heated, ever-growing market for modern design.

In 2005, an exquisite 1949 glass and oak trestle table by Mollino sold for $3.8 million at Christie’s, setting an auction record for a piece of 20th-century furniture. (The table is on display in the traveling exhibition “Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design,” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum through July 22.)

A recent retrospective of Mollino’s work at the GAM–Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in his native city of Turin, Italy, and the publication of a new monograph, The Furniture of Carlo Mollino, Complete Works, have further established him as one of the most significant designers of the postwar period.

“Collectors are attracted to the complexity, individuality and eroticism of Mollino’s designs,” says Brian Kish, a New York–based curator and dealer of 20th-century Italian design. “He pushed the boundaries of modern design by emphasizing its hidden sculptural tendencies.

His expressive Surrealist vision, rooted in subconscious impulses and desires, ran counter to the analytical, minimalist Italian Rationalist and Bauhaus designs that prevailed during his time. In this sense, he was radical, even subversive, and his influence can be seen today in the free-flowing forms of such contemporary architects and designers as Ron Arad, Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid.”