Serge Mouille Ceiling Lamp Six Rotating Arms

Details

Description

As for all of the Serge Mouille lighting collection all reflector rotating by almost 260 degree. A major sculptural work … Read more As for all of the Serge Mouille lighting collection all reflector rotating by almost 260 degree. A major sculptural work by Serge Mouille.

Impressively large, this six arm ceiling lamp is a Mouille classic. Tilting and rotating heads with rotating arms of 31 and 54 inches make this fixture a truly spectacular statement in a large room. Has two Black shades and four white shades with a brass swivels connect the shades. The arms have
brass stops.

23.62 in.Hx62.2 in.Wx106.69 in.D
60 cmHx158 cmWx271 cmD

Laquered Steel

Instantly recognizable by their long slender armatures and domed, ovoid shades, the best-known lamps and lighting fixtures of Serge Mouille have become emblems of the organic design of the mid-20th century. Along with Jean Prouvé, Mathieu Matégot and others, Mouille brought a fresh, modern aesthetic to metalwork, one of the most tradition-bound mediums in the decorative arts.

Mouille was born to a working Parisian family. At age 15, he took up studies in the metalworking atelier of that École des Arts Appliqués, under the tutelage of the goldsmith and sculptor Gabriel Lacroix. After graduating, in 1941, Mouille worked in Lacroix’s studio and began teaching at the School of Applied Arts four years later. In the early 1950s, bothered by the preponderance of new Italian lamps and chandeliers on the market and consumed with the belief that fixtures by Gino Sarfatti and others were unnecessarily complex, Mouille opened a lighting-design workshop. He quickly won commissions from several French schools and libraries. In 1956, the influential Paris gallerist Steph Simon — who also promoted Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand and Isamu Noguchi — began to show Mouille designs, introducing his work to private collectors. Mouille would continue making handcrafted lighting fixtures at a slow but steady pace until 1964, when he stopped working to begin a long course of treatment for tuberculosis. When it was completed, Mouille returned to teaching at the École des Arts Appliqués for the remainder of his career.

With the biomorphic shades and long armatures of his fixtures, Mouille created one of the most engaging and idiosyncratic lighting aesthetics of his time. Though often described as “insect-like,” his pieces have more in common with the fluid, buoyant forms in the paintings of Jean Arp. (Mouille designed several cylindrical or columnar lamps; though highly collectible, those are interesting outliers in his body of work.) As with Prouvé’s folded metal forms and Matégot’s perforated steel, Mouille brought a novel lightness and energy to metal furnishings. As you may know, Serge Mouille created icons of 20th century design — at once sleek, suave and friendly — that belong in any modern decor. See less