Table lamp c. 1950

0:00

brass, metal, glass

brass

metal

geometric composition

glass

geometric

decorative-art

modernism

Dimensions: 21 5/16 x 6 1/4in. (54.1 x 15.9cm)

This table lamp was made by Haj Markaryd, and the whole piece is about light, how it travels and how it's experienced. The orange shade, covered in tiny holes, reminds me of a sieve, like the light is being strained through it. Look at the way the light is both contained and released by the shade, it's like a dance between control and chaos, something that is very important to me in my own artistic practice. The reflective gold base is the perfect counterbalance, offering stability and reflecting the filtered light back into the room. Thinking about Markaryd, I'm reminded of Eileen Gray, another designer who blurred the lines between functionality and art. Both understood that objects can be both useful and beautiful, practical and poetic. Ultimately, this lamp isn’t just about illumination; it’s about how we perceive and interact with our environment.

Comments

minneapolisinstituteofart over 1 year ago

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Pre-eminent in Scandinavian lighting design is the work of Poul Henningsen from 1925 to the present (whose work is seen in this exhibition). There were, however, other isolated exponents of both the Bauhaus and the more severe aspects of French Moderne, including Swede Haj Markaryd. Functional and arresting, this table lamp can match the most avant-garde of its European counterparts in form, choice of metallic finishes and the use of a bright, transparent shade. The machine-age aestheticism is no doubt influenced by the German Bauhaus school, as some of the most fruitful artistic ideas from the Bauhaus were synthesized in Sweden in the late 1920s and presented ceremonially in the famous Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, which signaled functionalism's breakthrough in Sweden. Produced around 1950, this lamp, with its vibrant shade, also reveals the increasing importance of color highlighted in the 1930 exhibition. A lamp obviously designed for atmospheric effect as much for localized light, no effort was made to deflect light or hide the bulb.