Boris Lacroix Dog

Boris Lacroix was a French architect and interior designer famous for his seminal contributions to Art Deco, particularly his lamps and light fixture designs created during the 1950s. Lacroix’s work is most renowned for its sensitive and precise configurations of glass and metal in the fashioning of chandeliers, sconces and table lamps. He is also known for being an important artistic director for the fashion house Vionnet from the mid-1920s up until towards the end of the 1930s. He was one of the pioneers of modern lighting in his design of geometric forms and his development of specifically manufactured acrylic fixtures. In 1927, Lacroix exhibited his designs at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs as well as the Salon d’Automne to great critical success. The seamlessness of his design and quality of production was greatly appreciated. Particularly because Lacroix’s materials were also glass and metal, the way his pieces slotted into place was a feat in modern design and manufacturing. Lacroix left Vionnet in 1937 to begin his practice. After World War II, Lacroix re-established his practice and in 1950, launched his Dog Lamp design to huge success. This marked a turning point in his career as his designs attracted an enormous degree of popular attention from this point onwards. Throughout the 1950s, he launched several seminal and popular designs such as Lamp 315, which is still popular today. Lacroix died in Paris in 1984, aged 82.

Well-crafted antique and vintage table lamps do more than provide light; the right fixture-and-table combination can add a focal point or creative element to any interior.

Proper table lamps have long been used for lighting our most intimate spaces. Perfect for lighting your nightstand or reading nook, table lamps play an integral role in styling an inviting room. In the years before electricity, lamps used oil. Today, a rewired 19th-century vintage lamp can still provide a touch of elegance for a study.

After industrial milestones such as mass production took hold in the Victorian era, various design movements sought to bring craftsmanship and innovation back to this indispensable household item. Lighting designers affiliated with Art Deco, which originated in the glamorous roaring ’20s, sought to celebrate modern life by fusing modern metals with dark woods and dazzling colors in the fixtures of the era. The geometric shapes and gilded details of vintage Art Deco table lamps provide an air of luxury and sophistication that never goes out of style.

After launching in 1934, Anglepoise lamps soon became a favorite among modernist architects and designers, who interpreted the fixture as “a machine for lighting,” just as Le Corbusier had reimagined the house as “a machine for living in.” The popular task light owed to a collaboration between a vehicle-suspension engineer by the name of George Carwardine and a West Midlands springs manufacturer, Herbert Terry & Sons. 

Some mid-century modern table lamps, particularly those created by the likes of Joe Colombo and the legendary lighting artisans at Fontana Arte, bear all the provocative hallmarks associated with Space Age design. Sculptural and versatile, the Louis Poulsen table lamps of that period were revolutionary for their time and still seem innovative today. 

If you are looking for something more contemporary, industrial table lamps are demonstrative of a newly chic style that isn’t afraid to pay homage to the past. They look particularly at home in any rustic loft space amid exposed brick and steel beams.

Before you buy a desk lamp or table lamp for your living room, consider your lighting needs. The Snoopy lamp, designed in 1967, or any other “banker’s lamp” (shorthand for the Emeralite desk lamps patented by H.G. McFaddin and Company), provides light at a downward angle that is perfect for writing, while the Fontana table lamp and the beloved Grasshopper lamp by Greta Magnusson-Grossman each yield a soft and even glow. Some table lamps require lampshades to be bought separately.

Whether it’s a classic antique Tiffany table lamp, a Murano glass table lamp or even a bold avant-garde fixture custom-made by a contemporary design firm, the right table lamp can completely transform a room. Find the right one for you on 1stDibs.