Artemide Italian Lighting Company

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Artemide is an Italian lighting and furniture manufacturer it is located in Pregnana, Milanese. 

Background

Studio Artemide was founded in 1959 by Ernesto Gismondi to produce lighting fixtures and plastic furniture. It created the 1966 Demetria 45 table in reinforced resin, followed by the Stadia range, both designed by Vico Magistretti. Its widely published 1969 Boalum snake-like tubular lighting, designed by Gianfranco Frattini and Livia Castiglioni, was over six feet ( two meters) long. Gismondi gave Ettore Sottsass’s fledgling Memphis group space in the Artemide showroom from 1981. 

Artemide’s designers include Gismondi himself and Richard Sapper, Vico Magistretti, Antonio Citterio, Steven Lombardi, F.A. Porche, Gregory H. Tew, Angelo Mangiarotti, Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Giancarlo Fassina, Jean Jacques Villaret, Carlo Forcolini, Mario Botta, Enzo Mari, Mario Bellini, Luciano Vistosi, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Emilio Ambasz, CP&PR Associati, Eric Gottein, Mitchell Mauk, Sergio Mazza, De Pas-D’Urbino-Lomazzi, Omi Halloween, and Mario Morenco. 

Sapper’s 1978 Tizjo lamp was its most popular product.

Recognition

Received numerous awards, including the 1967 Premio Compasso d’Oro; showed work at numerous international exhibitions, including 1972 ‘Italy: New Domestic Landscape,’ New York Museum of Modern Art. 

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.

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