Ingo Maurer

Ingo Maurer (1932-2019), with his highly personal aesthetic research between art and design applied to the world of lighting, was one of the most loved and appreciated figures of German design of the late twentieth century. His lamps are surprising and ingenious, capable of reworking economic materials in an unexpected way, crossed by a poetic vein that is not without irony. After studying graphic design and a few years of experience in the United States, in 1966 he founded his Design M in Munich, which later became Ingo Maurer GmbH, a creative laboratory through which he will give life to all his projects. His surprising research that reinterprets iconic and reassuring forms in a creative and decontextualized way is manifested since his first lamp, the Bulb model, in which the entire luminaire takes the shape of a large oversized light bulb. Over the years, personal exhibitions have been dedicated to him all over the world, from Paris to Amsterdam, from New York to Frankfurt, and he has obtained important awards such as that of Royal Designer for Industry (conferred in London by the Royal Society of Arts in 2005) or the Compasso d'Oro International (2011). He has rarely tried his hand at furniture design, for example in a special collaboration with De Padova.