Selected Images

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  Table Lamp, 1927
  Table Lamp, 1927

  Table Lamp, 1927
  Chrome plated steel and glass
  Donald Deskey (American, 1894–1989), designer
  Deskey Vollmer, Inc., American, active 1927–1931, manufacturer
  High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase in honor of Caroline Heilweil, President of the Members Guild, 2000–2001, with funds from the Decorative Arts Acquisition Endowment, 2000.207

  Donald Deskey’s Table Lamp evokes the clean, modernist lines and geometric structures popular during the interwar period. Its stylized zigzag, stepped shape contrasts with the more nuanced integration of glass seen in Godefridus Johannes (Frits) Kuyken’s Model A6 Floor Lamp, on view in the exhibition. The three triangular sections mimic a traffic light. Each section of Deskey’s lamp is composed of an individual bulb in a compartment that is, in turn, fully covered with glass panels. With its diffused light creating a warm, even glow, it functions more as an art object or conversation piece than a usable task/table light.

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  Fragile Future 3.13, 2013 
  Fragile Future 3.13, 2013 

  Fragile Future 3.13, 2013
  Dandelion seeds, phosphorus bronze, LED bulbs, and Plexiglas
  DRIFT, Dutch, established 2007, artist and maker
  Purchase with funds from the Wish Foundation, the Decorative Arts Acquisition Endowment Fund, Sarah Kenan Kennedy, Roya and Bahman Irvani, and Sara and Paul N. Steinfeld, 2017.333

  Technology and nature meet in a delicate fusion within Fragile Future 3.13, a light sculpture featuring real dandelion seeds handpicked and meticulously attached seed-by-seed to a series of LED lights connected through three-dimensional bronze circuits. Uniting nature, poetic aesthetics, and high technology, the labor-intensive design challenges ideas of mass production and questions whether these advances are superior to the evolutions of nature. The DRIFT team says, “The project can be seen as a critical yet utopian vision on the future of our planet, where two seemingly opposite evolutions have made a pact to survive.”

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  Super Lamp, designed 1978, made ca. 1985–1989 
  Super Lamp, designed 1978, made ca. 1985–1989 

  Super Lamp, designed 1978, made ca. 1985–1989
  Fiberglass, enamel, steel, rubber, and 40 watt incandescent bulbs
  Martine Bedin (French, born 1957), designer
  Memphis Milano, Italian, active 1981–1988, manufacturer
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Design Council, 2020, 2020.71

  Martine Bedin displays bulbs with a sense of whimsy in her Super Lamp for the Italian design collective Memphis. Resembling a streamlined toy car, the rounded base is crowned with a row of similarly shaped bulbs with different-colored socket collars. The lamp is more sculptural when unlit, but the warmth of the illuminated, exposed bulbs matches the exuberance of the design. The result is that even while displaying the bare bulb, Bedin indicates that lighting can be more than simply utilitarian—it can express ideas of play and wonder, all while maintaining its core function.

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  Moloch Floor Lamp, 1971 
  Moloch Floor Lamp, 1971 

  Moloch Floor Lamp, 1971
  Anodized aluminum, painted aluminum, steel, and bulb
  Gaetano Pesce (Italian, born 1939), designer
  Bracciodiferro, Italian, active 1971–1975, manufacturer
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund

  In 1971, Gaetano Pesce was inspired to design an oversize lamp because there were few standing lamps that could illuminate public spaces or large interiors. Rather than create something new, he decided to base his lamp on an existing one—designer Jac Jacobsen’s iconic L-1 Adjustable Table Lamp of 1937, which was inspired by George Carwardine’s Anglepoise Lamp, on view in the exhibition. Pesce ultimately increased the original’s scale and details by a factor of four to create the Moloch Floor Lamp.

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  Eclisse Table Lamp, designed 1966, made ca. 1970
  Eclisse Table Lamp, designed 1966, made ca. 1970

  Eclisse Table Lamp, designed 1966, made ca. 1970
  Lacquered aluminum and bulb
  Vico Magistretti (Italian, 1920–2006), designer
  Artemide, Italian, established 1960, manufacturer
  Private collection

  Designed sculpturally using spheres, Eclisse reflects Vico Magistretti’s love of geometric forms and strong graphic outlines. Conceived as a bedside lamp, the design features three simple hemispheres: one functions as the base, another as the shade, and the third as a rotating eyelid or sun shield. The user can manipulate a domed shield to block out the light emanating from the bulb, creating stages of an eclipse (or eclisse in Italian). When fully closed, only a ring of light illuminates the edges of the shield’s circle.

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  Mega Chandelier, 2018
  Mega Chandelier, 2018

  Mega Chandelier, 2018
  Moooi Works, Dutch, established ca. 2009, designer
  Moooi, Dutch, established 2001, manufacturer
  Moooi, New York

  In 2018, the design firm Moooi challenged its in-house design team to create the ultimate chandelier. The resulting Mega Chandelier is so overwhelming in its scale and image that the visual impact of the whole swallows its parts. Moooi’s team included various individual chandelier typologies in the overall composition to offer a stylistic mini history of the form.

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  Tizio Table Lamp, designed 1971, made 1972–1973
  Tizio Table Lamp, designed 1971, made 1972–1973

  Tizio Table Lamp, designed 1971, made 1972–1973
  ABS plastic, aluminum, metal, and halogen bulb
  Richard Sapper (German, 1932–2015), designer
  Artemide, Italian, established 1960, manufacturer
  The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of the manufacturer, 1973

  One of the most commercially successful lighting designs of the twentieth century, Richard Sapper’s Tizio features adjustable and counterbalanced arms that allow for smooth directional placement of the light source. The technologically innovative Tizio, which had the ability to conduct electricity through its arms without wires, was one of the earliest examples of a task lamp to incorporate a generator as well as a halogen in its base.