Marcello Fantoni Table Lamp

Materials: Flat round metal base. 7 round metal (iron) tubes, burned and wrought. Conical fabric dark grey lampshade. Bakelite E27 socket.

Height: 56 cm / 22.04”

Base: ∅ 18 cm / 7.08”

Electricity: 1 bulb E27, 1 x 60 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulb can be used, not a specific one preferred.

Period: 1970s – Mid-Century modern.

Designer: Marcello Fantoni (1915–2011)

Manufacturer: Fantoni Ceramic Studio, via Bolognese, Florence, Italy – attributed.

Other versions: This Marcello Fantoni table lamp exists in many variations.

The style of these type of lamps is often named Brutalist. Not to be confused with the Brutalist architecture, or Brutalism from more or less the same period. That is something completely different.

It is possible that these lamps are a Marcello Fantoni design, but it is a strange story, and may not be true. Everybody says it, but Marcello Fantoni was a ceramist. All his other designs are completely different. Do you have an idea? Please let us know!

Marcello Fantoni

Marcello Fantoni was born in 1915 in Florence, Italy. He started with the study of ceramics at the age of 12 in the Art Institute of Florence (Accademia d’Arte). He graduated as a master of art in 1934.

In 1936 he opened the Fantoni Ceramic Studio in his hometown Florence. In 1939, by the start of World War II he had artistic and commercial success both in Italy and abroad. During the war he participated in the resistance. In 1945 Fantoni worked for the Maiolica factory in Deruta.

In the 1950s he refocused on his studio in Florence, He started to create large sculptural pieces, worked on many collaborations and expanded his experimenting with materials.

Fantoni started to create brutalist pieces in the 1960s together with figurative and abstract works.

In 1970 Fantoni founded the International School of Ceramic Art at his laboratory in via Bolognese in Florence, dedicated to teaching ceramic arts and experimentation.

Marcello Fantoni passed away in August of 2011 at the age of 95. His obituary in the Italian newspaper La Nazione hailed him “The master of beauty”, Il maestro della bellezza.

For a few years his workshop was shut down, until his granddaughter Ginevra reopened it in order to continue the Fantoni legacy.

Many of his pieces are featured in museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art and the National Bargello Museum in Florence.