Floor Lamp Designer: Peter Pfisterer (American, born Switzerland, 1907–1963)
Manufacturer: Mutual Sunset Lamp Manufacturing Company, Inc. (American)

1940

American Decorative Arts

On view, 3rd floor, Modern and Contemporary Art and Design

In 1941 the Museum of Modern Art awarded this lamp by Peter Pfisterer first prize for lighting in the museum's Organic Design exhibition. Many different kinds of light could be ingeniously obtained through the two horizontally rotating arms, on which are rotating shades. One arm could be adjusted near a chair for reading and the other could provide ambient light for the room. Pfisterer's design is a forerunner of the ubiquitous floor-to-ceiling pole lamps of the 1950s and 1960s.

Medium

Chromium-plated metal and paint

Dimensions

67 1/4 × 21 1/4 × 11 in. (170.8 × 54 × 27.9 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Jane Ritchie in memory of Andrew C. Ritchie

Accession Number

1981.53.14

Geography

Designed in Los Angeles, California, Manufactured in New York, New York

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Lighting Devices

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Purchased from Organic Design in Home Furnishings by Jane Thompson Ritchie and Andrew Carnduss Ritchie, New York, then Buffalo, New York, New Haven, Conn., and Canaan, Conn., 1941-81
Bibliography
  • John Stuart Gordon et al., A Modern World: American Design from the Yale University Art Gallery, 1920–1950 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2011), 272–73, no. 187
  • "Acquisitions 1981," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 38, no. 3 (Winter 1983), 72
Object copyright
Copyright Artist/Estate/Foundation
In Copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

floor lamps

Marks

"MSLC 4857," molded into underside of base

Technical metadata and APIs

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