Table lamp c. 1950

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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 is ‘Table Lamp’ by Haj Markaryd, sitting here in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, just beaming. I can imagine the designer having a quiet chuckle while conceiving this. The lamp is giving me such a clean, elegant, and futuristic vibe. The smooth, polished gold base rises like a confident column, holding up a delicate, coral-colored shade. It's almost like a minimalist sculpture playing with light and shadow. I wonder, what was Markaryd thinking when he made this? Was he playing with the idea of balance – between form and function, warm and cool? Or maybe he just wanted to make something pretty, and that's perfectly fine too. It reminds me a bit of some of Donald Judd's sculptures, just simplified and made functional. Ultimately, it’s these conversations across time and between different artists that I find so inspiring!

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.