Marcel Breuer, Nickel plated brass and granit lamp, 1925

Marcel Breuer, signed and numbered.

Bahaus desk lamp in nickel plated brass with a rectangular base decorated with three square-section sticks forming a rectangle centered by black granit inlaid. Cylindrical shaft. Shade with bulged top and articulating and adjustable movement, full 360 rotation possible.

Stamped “Exposition Paris 1925. Marcel Breuer”. Numbered 45/100.

Work realized for the Paris Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs in 1925.

Functional electrical system.

Dimensions : H 48,5 x W 29 x D 12 cm.

Reference : LS4140531

Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) was an architect and a designer born in Hungary and considerate as one of the father of the Modern movement. He trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, between 1920 and 1923. He worked for an architecture agency in Paris and came back the following year at Bauhaus that moved to Dessau in the meantime. He was young master and chief of the carpentry workshop. During this period he created the famous B3 chair, or Wassily Chair, the first one using tubular steel structure !
He was the creator of furniture and interior decoration of the new Bauhaus buildings and masters’ houses. He was professor at the Bauhaus until 1928 when he left to Berlin and created here furniture manufactured and commercialized by his startup Standard-Möbel then bought Thonet; it was the beginning of a long and strong collaboration between the furniture editor and the designer.
Marcel Breuer received orders from the Deutscher Werkbund to realize furniture for the German division of the SAD exhibition in Paris in 1930.
In 1935 he escaped from the rising of Nazism and settled for a time in London, then he moved to the USA in 1937. Walter Gropius, his former Bauhaus fellow, helped him to get a job of professor at the architecture school of the Harvard University. They also created together an architecture agency in New-York in 1946 and built together many villas and houses.
The MoMA of New-York realized an exhibition of his works in 1947 and he was a part of the team in charge of the realization of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 1953. At this time, as many modern architects, he showed a deep interest in concrete. In 1956 he created his own company, Marcel Breuer and Associates, still in New-York.
Today, Marcel Breuer’s creations are unavoidable pieces of design, as his B3 armchair or the cantilever Cesca chair.

L’Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes de 1925 (International exhibition of modern industrial and decorative arts in 1925) was in Paris and hosted a twentieth of countries to allow them promote a social art in accordance with contemporary living conditions and to create a modern art exhibition, opened to the stranger competition. The rules of this event was very strict and limited the style extravagances : « We will only accept the original artworks which will show a marked trend to the shape aesthetic renew. Imitations of old styles and industrial productions without artistic inspirations will not be allowed. »
The idea was launched from 1915 by the Union centrale des arts décoratifs (Central union of decorative arts), the Société des artistes décorateurs (Decorator artists society) and the Société d’encouragement à l’art et à l’industrie (Encouragement society to art and industry) with the will of a modern decorative art exhibition, with a collaboration between the artist and the industry in order to promote « french style », with low price to compete with stranger countries. After many twists and ajournments, the Exhibition finally opened in 1925.
Visitors were invited to enter by four large doors and then could wander between different pavilions and gardens where two French tendencies standed out : traditionals who picked up the last French styles such as Restauration and Louis-Philippe styles and moderns who used new industrial materials and created future styles. Despite these two opposite tendencies, the global architecture and the interior decoration were turned to geometry, without superficial ornament which some pavilions were examples : the Collector Pavilion by Rulhmann, the New Spirit Pavilion by Le Corbusier, Ozenfant and Pierre Jeanneret or some pieces from the French Ambassy created by the Decorator artists society as the smoker by Jean Dunand, the hall by Robert Mallet-Stevens, the library-office by Pierre Chareau or the fitness room by Francis Jourdain. But the Pavilion by Le Corbusier was the most modern because it took into account industrialization low price needs by standardization and use of new cheap materials to offer a functional and appealing alternative to construction and to luxurious decoration.
Department stores as le Bon Marché, les Galeries Lafayette or le Printemps were also there but without a great interest of architectural style evolution. Regarding the large manufactures and major firms such as Baccarat, Christofle, Sèvres, Cartier, Van Cleef, they permitted to extend their offers of jewels, in fashion and the art of the table.
The Exhibition was a real success for public but disappointed artists and experts that held against it its great luxe and its many ephemeral expensive constructions that didn’t complete the original social programme and forget the popular customers. Moreover, we reproached it to have been a « statement » exhibition presenting past years furniture by excluding industrial arts and not a visionary exhibition that wanted to plan the future decorative art stylistic evolution.

Sources :

• ALVAREZ, Histoires de l’Art Déco, Editions du Regard, 2010, Paris, pp.125 à 139
• POSSEME, Le mobilier français 1910-1930. Les années 25, éditions Massin, 1999, Paris, pp.131 à 141
• C&P.FIELL, Design du XXe siècle, Taschen, Cologne, 2000, pp.134-139