Anodized Floor Lamps

Unique Gino Sarfatti Variant floor lamp for Lumen, Italy, 1950s Variation floor lamp with the Arteluce model 3/VT reflectors.

Iconic midcentury Gino Sarfatti aluminum chrome Italian Lamp no. 1073. This wonderful item was designed by Gino Sarfatti for an Arteluce production in Italy during 1950s. It is very elegant because it has a cast iron base with wrinkled paint, a chromed steel stem and an anodized aluminum reflector. The perfect item for completing a modern living room. Use E 27 bulb not included. Gino Sarfatti developed nearly 700 floor lamps, chandeliers, spotlights and other “light fittings,” as he called them, between the mid-1930s and early 1970s. During that time, Sarfatti experimented continuously with new types of light sources, wiring, switches, reflectors, transformers and other components to refine his designs, and co-founded a company, Arteluce, to manufacture them. But after selling the business in 1973, he forsook both lighting and design by retiring to Lake Como to pursue another passion, dealing in rare stamps, until his death in 1985. Many of his lights are still in production, but Sarfatti was largely forgotten outside design circles until the opening last month of a retrospective of his work at La Triennale Design Museum in Milan. Running through Nov. 17, it celebrates the centenary of his birth by exhibiting 200 of his “light fittings,” including some that he used in his home. Fittingly for the man who printed “Gino Sarfatti — Lighting razionale” (rational lighting) on the stationery of his first workshop, his output is presented simply and lucidly in a large open-plan space at La Triennale. Curated by the Italian designers, MarCo Romanelli and Sandra Severi Sarfatti, who is Sarfatti’s daughter-in-law, the exhibition is divided into three sections: 1936-1945, 1946-1961 and 1962-1973. The lights from each era, including ones owned by the Sarfatti family and the French collectors, Clémence and Didier Krzentowski, as well as Flos, the Italian lighting company that bought Arteluce, are one after another on white backdrops, making it easy to identify Sarfatti’s preoccupations during particular periods and to trace the progress of his experiments with various themes over the years. The result is a rousing tribute to an unusually inventive designer. Most of his peers entered design after studying art or architecture, but Sarfatti’s roots were in engineering, which defined his way of working. Born in Venice, he planned to become an aeronautical engineer, but had to leave university when his father’s business failed. The family moved to Milan and Sarfatti took a job as a salesman to help to make ends meet. He designed his first lamp by default when a family friend asked him to turn a glass vase into one. Sarfatti placed a lighting fixture from a coffee machine inside the vase, and was so intrigued by the process that he opened the “rational lighting” workshop to produce more lights. Image Gino Sarfatti forsook lighting and design by retiring to Lake Como to pursue another passion, dealing in rare stamps. Gino Sarfatti forsook lighting and design by retiring to Lake Como to pursue another passion, dealing in rare stamps. Credit...Archivio Storico Flos Bereft of conventional training, he had to improvise and developed each product by working directly with the artisans in the workshop, rather than by sketching ideas and leaving them to produce models or prototypes, as most other designers did at the time. By doing so, he steeped himself in the technical logistics of lighting production and was able to use that knowledge to devise increasingly ingenious ways of constructing different lights and in making the most of Italy’s enviable network of specialist suppliers and fabricators. In 1939, only a few years after making his first light, Sarfatti co-founded Arteluce. When Milan was bombed during World War II, he moved production to Brianza in the foothills of the Alps and lived there with his family, before fleeing to Switzerland. His father was Jewish and the Sarfattis were fearful of the threat of persecution by Italy’s fascist...

Set of three floor lamps by Gino Sarfatti for Italian lighting company Arteluce. This model with number 1073 has been produced from 1956-1974. The bases are designed to fit inside...