Joe Calafato designed and manufactured silver jewellery, flatware and hollowware during the mid to late 20th century in a career spanning 37 years in Pretoria, South Africa.
His work made an important contribution to the development of a uniquely South African design domain and has become increasingly sought after at antique and collectible markets.
Of Sicilian parentage, Giuseppe Leonardo Calafato was born on the 10th of July 1912 in the then Loreno Marques (now Maputo) Mozambique. In the 1920s the family moved to Johannesburg. Here he did his apprenticeship as a manufacturing jeweller under Jack Friedman a well-known local jewellery manufacturer of his time.