On the occasion of its next Italian Design auction sale, on November 5th, PIASA will highlight the work of the prodigious designer Angelo Lelli and his company Arredoluce, by proposing for sale a whole collection of lamps.
Looking over this collection of lamps, well-known since the early 2000s and which contributed greatly to ourresearch on Arredoluce creations, we wonder why these lightings executed by Angelo Lelii in Monza are suchcoveted objects nowadays, with a constant growing trend and consolidated market in the long term. The appeal of design and Italian lighting of the second half of the 20th century is undoubtedly due to historical,artistic and technical factors: founding principles of the “Made in Italy“. Modern archaeology resurrectedmany names of the Design culture, developed especially in the post-war Milanese area. These names and stories aroused the curiosity of merchants and international amateurs, which were pioneersas for this type of objects.
Arredoluce is a typical example of the post-war Italian entrepreneurship : instinct, expertise, ingenuity,accuracy, an entrepreneur/designer able to build a new creation, like O-Luce and Arteluce for instance.The story started in basements and improvised laboratories, making anything which could be useful, and inother words: everything.
These gifted factories witnessed the arrival of other designers. The Italian case is rather specific in the end: itwas an enlightened group of designers and architects, attached to the old world of private orders, who madeuse of mass production.
Angelo Lelii (1915-1987)
Model n°12736
Estimate : 8000 / 12000 €
Interacting directly with producers and clients conceiving new ways to design, decorative art really becomean industrial art. Groups of cultural and artistic influence emerged, a Milanese elite which tended to excluderather than include.Domus magazine even described some of Arredoluce’s lightings as “the fruit of spontaneous creation“,meaning that there was no academic Design at its root.Arredoluce, among the other major figures, was less visible in terms of communication, and Lelii avoidedintellectual boundaries.
Monza and Brianza’s tight markets answered to this type of production with diffidence, defined as “modern“,and substantially matching the Arredoluce which we know and appreciate today.This combination of factors certainly brought on a feeling of revenge, encouraging Lino (Lelii’s nickname) toaim at Italy as well as foreign markets.
Franco Giovanni Legler (born 1922) Movalux
Estimate : 15000 / 20000 €
This pushed the creator in a constant quest looking for perfection, hence this spasmodic desire to surprise withhis technique and to stand out by refusing pre-established codes. Every lamp is an exception, economy of scaleand standard are not part of Angelo's mindset. Even blockbuster models have to meet specific crafting needs.Almost everything is produced in-house, including the smaller screws, which can easily be found off-the-shelf.Lelii himself controls them one by one.
The sense of proportion in Lelii's drawings is the very essence of the 1950s. The iconic models that were bornfrom it are the archetypes of an era (the Triennale and the Cobra in the first place), mechanistic intuitionsprecede models then brought to great success (the Filosfera, which anticipates the Parentesi de Flos).
Angelo Lelii (1915-1987)
Floor Lamp
Estimate : 8000 / 12000 €
In these lamps are felt the influences of kinetic and abstract art, Calder's machines and spatialism.Angelo Lelii travels and gets inspired. He obtains prestigious commissions and brings the best to his studio,from Gio Ponti to Ettore Sottsass, Achille Castiglioni to Nanda Vigo; all admiring his executive skills and hisvision of light as a technological art.
The collection presented here has this merit of representing a legacy of the civilization of construction thatwe are committed to protecting and transmitting and which, we are certain, will remain a reference figure indefining the domestic environment of the golden age of modernity.
Alessandro Padoan , Archivio Storico Arredoluce
