Donald Deskey was a pioneer in the professionalization and growth of industrial design in the United States during the 1930s. From his first designs for department store window displays to his sumptuous furnishings for the interiors of Radio City Music Hall, Deskey designed many of the icons that define an American modern style. With its sharp zig-zag profile and its mirror polished chrome, this lamp distills into a compact and punchy object the essence of Deskey’s talent for design. The lamp is the very embodiment of the sleek, machined aesthetics of industrial design’s rise during the fast-paced, style-driven interwar period.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Table Lamp
Designer:Donald Deskey (American, Blue Earth, Minnesota 1894–1989 Vero Beach, Florida)
Manufacturer:Deskey-Vollmer, Inc.
Date:1927
Medium:Chrome-plated metal, glass, plastic cable
Dimensions:12 5/16 × 4 3/8 × 5 11/16 in., 3.8 lb. (31.3 × 11.1 × 14.5 cm, 1.7 kg)
Classification:Lighting
Credit Line:John C. Waddell Collection, Gift of John C. Waddell, 2014
Object Number:2014.744
[Fifty/50, New York, until 1984; sold in 1984 to Waddell]; John C. Waddell, New York (1984–2014; his gift to MMA)
Brooklyn Museum. "The Machine Age in America, 1918–1941," October 17, 1986–February 16, 1987, unnumbered cat. (fig. 8.30; unnumbered checklist published for Brooklyn venue; lent by John C. Waddell).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 16, 2000–January 7, extended to February 4, 2001, unnumbered cat. (p. 116; John C. Waddell Collection, Promised Gift of John C. Waddell).
Newport Beach, Calif. Orange County Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 25–August 19, 2001, unnumbered cat.
Flint, Mich. Flint Institute of Arts. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," September 14–December 16, 2001, unnumbered cat.
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," January 11–April 7, 2002, unnumbered cat.
Charlotte. Mint Museum of Craft and Design. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 3–July 28, 2002, unnumbered cat.
Tulsa. Philbrook Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," August 23–November 17, 2002, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (fig. 184; as "Lamp").
"Studies in Contrasts: The New and the Old." House & Garden 56 (July 1929), ill. p. 81 (installation photo, bedroom of James Breeze home, Southampton).
David A. Hanks with Jennifer Toher. Donald Deskey: Decorative Designs and Interiors. New York, 1987, pp. 36, 198 n. 17, figs. 18, 19 (installation photos, American Designers' Gallery, New York, 1928), 44 (color), 89 (installation photo, Adam Gimbel apartment, New York, ca. 1927).
Douglas Eklund, Marilyn F. Friedman, and Randall R. Griffey inMaking The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 168, 253, fig. 184 (color), calls it "Lamp".
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