Mario Torrisi was born in Sicily and as a youth worked as a soil tiller in the Sicilian province of Catania. Migrating to Australia in 1951, he travelled to Innisfail to work as a cane cutter. At Innisfail he learnt the art of making cane furniture from fellow Italian migrant, Salvatore Giuffre. In 1954 Mario moved to Ingham where he established Ingham Cane Furniture Manufacturers. The firm continued until 1959 when he found he could no longer compete with cheap imported plastic furniture. During the following years Mario took up seasonal employment at the Victoria Mill, Ingham and in Victoria where he was married in 1962. That year he returned to Ingham with his wife and was again employed by the Victoria Mill, now as a locomotive driver, full-time. Not wanting to lose his skill in cane furniture making, he began collecting lawyer cane through the State Forestry Department. He made cane furniture in his spare time, as a hobby. From 1964 he continued to make chairs, especially in 1988, Australia’s Bicentennial year, when he designed and made three Bicentennial chairs as a spontaneous commemorative gesture. In 1988, after seeing the Aussie Folk Art exhibition at the Queensland Museum, he gave one of these chairs, a 'Grandfather' armchair, to the Museum (H20462); the other two chairs he kept for his children.