It happened at the same time this morning, when I was teaching a class on the pioneers of modern lighting design in Italy, Gino Sarfetti, Gio Ponti, and Angelo Lelii. Maurer’s signature device, a light bulb with white wings crafted out of goose feathers (above), came symbolize his ambition in bringing together the functional and the transcendental; the emotional and the rational; the precious and the kitsch; the whimsical and the crafted. While his work was never defined in stylistic language, it has a recognizable style.
His most collectible piece is certainly ‘Porca Miseria! )What a Disaster!(,’ a ceiling light, made of broken plates and broken pieces of Buddha figurines in the attempt to freeze explosion in a china shop (fetched £11,8,750 at Christie’s, 2017). Everyone has his own favorite Maurer’s design; mine are those sculptural lights crafted of finely pleated handmade paper in the Japanese technique.
Maurer will be remembered for his fascination with the bare bulb (his earliest design ‘Bulb’ of 1965 is a bulb within a bulb – blow); for introducing emotional resonances to lighting design; and for bringing lighting (again) to the spotlight.
