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Lot Essay
Although best known for his monumental sculptural works, Bernard Schottlander started his creative career as a successful lighting designer. Born in Mainz, he fled his native country in 1939 to settle in Leeds, where he started to work as a welder and undertook military service. After studying sculpture at the Leeds College of Art, he continued his education at the St. John’s Wood Art Centre and at the Central School of Art and Design, where he graduated in industrial design in 1951. That same year Schottlander established his workshop in Swiss Cottage, London and started to single-handedly design and manufacture a diverse range of lighting that revealed both his training as a metalworker and his studies of sculpture and design. Only a year after the opening of his workshop, his creations were given a primary position in an extensive 1952 Architectural Review editorial on the new, cutting-edge lighting designs then being developed by other British and European designers.
The 1951 catalogue of designs that Schottlander self-published illustrated some of his most popular and well-known works, such as the ‘Mantis’ or ‘Bat’ lamps. Despite being widely published and duly celebrated at the time, Schottlander’s laborious, hand-crafted production methods were not suitable for mass-production, and ultimately very few of these designs were widely retailed in any quantity. The present lot, which has been only recently re-discovered, is conspicuous for its absence within Schottlander’s 1951 catalogue, prompting reasonable speculation that this example may be a unique prototype, and may indeed be the very example that was photographed and published in the 1952 Architectural Review article.
Of remarkable large size, the pylon-like structure immediately summons reference to the Skylon and the Dome of Discovery, temporary exhibition buildings created for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The lamp features three arms, each fixed at a different height and benefitting from adjustable aluminium shades finished in the definitive 1951 ‘Festival’ palette. Intriguingly, the organic shape and scooped profile of the shades are notable for their anticipation of Serge Mouille’s characteristic Casquette of 1953.
Schottlander described himself as a designer for interiors, and a sculptor for exteriors. In 1963 he turned fully to sculpture and eventually established himself as a successful artist supported by numerous public commissions, such as South of the River (1975-76) at Becket House or 3B Series I (1968) at the campus of the University of Warwick. Schottlander’s design and sculpture has recently been the subject of the Indoors and Out: The Sculpture and Design of Bernard Schottlander, an exhibition supervised by the Henry Moore Foundation and held at the Leeds Art Gallery between September 22nd, 2007 and January 6th, 2008.
The 1951 catalogue of designs that Schottlander self-published illustrated some of his most popular and well-known works, such as the ‘Mantis’ or ‘Bat’ lamps. Despite being widely published and duly celebrated at the time, Schottlander’s laborious, hand-crafted production methods were not suitable for mass-production, and ultimately very few of these designs were widely retailed in any quantity. The present lot, which has been only recently re-discovered, is conspicuous for its absence within Schottlander’s 1951 catalogue, prompting reasonable speculation that this example may be a unique prototype, and may indeed be the very example that was photographed and published in the 1952 Architectural Review article.
Of remarkable large size, the pylon-like structure immediately summons reference to the Skylon and the Dome of Discovery, temporary exhibition buildings created for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The lamp features three arms, each fixed at a different height and benefitting from adjustable aluminium shades finished in the definitive 1951 ‘Festival’ palette. Intriguingly, the organic shape and scooped profile of the shades are notable for their anticipation of Serge Mouille’s characteristic Casquette of 1953.
Schottlander described himself as a designer for interiors, and a sculptor for exteriors. In 1963 he turned fully to sculpture and eventually established himself as a successful artist supported by numerous public commissions, such as South of the River (1975-76) at Becket House or 3B Series I (1968) at the campus of the University of Warwick. Schottlander’s design and sculpture has recently been the subject of the Indoors and Out: The Sculpture and Design of Bernard Schottlander, an exhibition supervised by the Henry Moore Foundation and held at the Leeds Art Gallery between September 22nd, 2007 and January 6th, 2008.