Biography
Gaetano Sciolari (1927-1994) was an Italian designer whose father managed a lightings production company. He graduated in architecture and then moved towards movies making. However in 1949, with his father died, he took the head of the family company that soon became unavoidable on the international scene. He became the first Italian lamps manufacturer to import to the United States, as one of the biggest importers of lightings. He worked for large companies such as Lightolier, Stilnovo or Stilkronen. He was the founder and the first president of the Professional Italian association of lighting equipments manufacturers.
Context
When Sciolari came on the lightings market in the 1950’s, the Italian design was in full swing. Large industrial companies, such as Stilnovo, called some avant-garde designers to create items that will became icons of international design. Italy showed a taste for experimentations in original lightings manufacture. Designers created fancy and very colored lamps, generally in copper, brass or enameled metal, with geometrical lines, influenced by the contemporary sculpture.
How to recognize him ?
Sciolari’s creations mixed a whole avant-garde formal research with geometrical inspirations, but they’re always elegant and sophisticated. He played a lot with motifs repetitions and accentuated his formal games thanks to the use of characteristic materials such as brass, chromes, copper, often used alternately with the glass lightness. and transparency.
