Mid-Century Kalmar Leuchten - "Catena" Chandelier by Carlo Nason, 1960s

A mid-century modern reference for today’s Murano glassmakers, Carlo Nason influenced the current tradition of glassmaking on an island renowned for it for hundreds of years. Celebrated for their exceptional designs, Nason’s lighting fixtures are sought after by collectors worldwide.

Learning to design and craft pieces from the family vetreria — rather than partaking in any formal training — Nason was working with the maestros at his family’s company furnace, V. Nason & C., attached to their family home by the time he was 11 years old. Although his roots are in Murano glassmaking, he took inspiration from the clean lines and natural colors of the Japanese metal vases he had seen in his youth at Milanese fairs.

Wanting to produce modern glass lamps, Nason worked with his family friend Gianni Mazzega of Mazzega Murano. For his Cascata chandelier (Italian for “waterfall”), which debuted in the 1960s, Nason achieved the effect of cascading water through an inverted pyramid of hanging glass plates, each individually mouth-blown and suspended from a chrome-plated frame for a dazzling, Art Deco–styled display.

The 1970s and 1980s were productive and creative years for Nason as the sole and independent designer at Mazzega Murano. His prolific career has also seen him design for other lighting manufacturers like I TRE, Murano Due and Kalmar.

After a mere four years as a glassmaker, Carlo Nason had his creations displayed at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. The credit for the artisan’s pieces that were included in “Glass 1959” went to his family’s company, but the designs were all authored by Carlo.

Stepping away from the traditional, vibrant Murano stylings, Nason kept true to his inspiration, working with modern and simple forms that are relatively free of color. Nason told Palainco in a rare 2019 interview that his emotions inspired the shapes. And his legacy includes fixtures that are irreplicable and unreproducible, too — Nason made lighting pieces with multiple layers of glass that would be too costly or difficult to recreate today, and some designs were made with processes and materials now unavailable or banned in the glassmaking world.

Find an array of vintage Carlo Nason table lamps, floor lamps, decorative objects and more on 1stDibs.

In 1881, Julius August Kalmar founded Kalmar, a Viennese company that produced handcrafted objects of cast bronze. Kalmar developed a fine reputation and exhibited internationally often, but it was Kalmar’s son, Julius Theodor Kalmar, who took over in 1913 and made the company shine with its modernist lighting.

Having studied at the Birmingham School of Art and Design and under the Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann at the Vienna School of Applied Arts, Julius was deeply inspired by the shift to modernity taking place in Europe and sought to work with the leading architects and designers of his time, including Austrian Werkbund architects Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach as well as Ernst Plischke, Clemens Holzmeister and Oswald Haerdtl. Similar to the Wiener Werkstätte cooperative cofounded by Hoffmann that prized materials, form and function, Kalmar viewed his company’s lighting fixtures as “quite humble things” meant to “fit in and serve their purpose of functionally illuminating spaces without glare.”

In 1925, Kalmar began selling in Haus und Garten, the forward-looking decor shop founded by Frank and Wlach. By 1931, a close partnership with the Austrian Werkbund association of architects, artists and craftsmen allowed the company to realize its vision of early 20th-century modernity — a distinctly Viennese pairing of traditional workmanship with contemporary technology. These collaborations included chandeliers and other fixtures using traditional materials such as glass, bronze and brass while focusing on function over ornamentation. As the company grew, so too did the scope of its projects, and soon Kalmar was installing extravagant chandeliers for the Vienna Opera, the Burgtheater, Vienna stock exchange and other sites.

Under the guidance of Rudolf Calice, Julius Theodor Kalmar’s son-in-law, the 1960s saw Kalmar’s popularity grow, thanks in part to the success of more decorative pieces like the ice-glass fixtures created with Austrian sculptor Karl Gruber. Thomas Calice, the great-grandson of Kalmar’s founder, led the company in the 1990s and its expansion to international lighting projects while shifting away from serial production. In 2009, Thomas’s son August Chalice established Kalmar Werkstätten to produce fixtures that reference the Kalmar archives but also feature updates on the iconic designs. Kalmar continues to produce bespoke fixtures while also working on custom lighting projects around the world, from cruise ships to the Burj Khalifa.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Kalmar lighting that includes wall lights, floor lamps and other fixtures.