To those who know, Italian lighting designer Angelo Lelii is an icon, but his name may not be as widely familiar as those of his 20th-century peers – from Achille Castiglioni to Gae Aulenti. But Lelii, who founded the lighting company Arredoluce in the 1940s, exerted a significant influence on modernist lighting design that endures to this day, and his pieces are as sought-after as ever.
Angelo Lelii and Arredoluce
Pendant lamp ‘12452’ by Angelo Lelii, 1955, from Antiqua Gallery, Athens
Born in Ancona, Italy, around 1911-1915 (sources dispute the date), he studied at ISIA (Superior Institute of Industrial Art) at the University of Decorative Arts in Monza, on the outskirts of Milan. Fascinated by lighting and in pursuit of design with clean lines, utilising new technologies, Lelii began to create lamps in 1943 in the basement of his home in Monza. In 1946, he advertised his lighting designs in the pages of Domus magazine, a move that would catalyse the formation of his brand Arredoluce the following year.
Floor lamp, 1950s
At the eighth Triennale di Milano in 1947, the international art and design exhibition, Lelii exhibited a geometric and minimalist floor lamp. The metal design featured shaded lights on three adjustable arms held aloft; as if an angular Alexander Calder mobile had turned into a lighting object. The work made such an impact at the exhibition that it came to be known simply as the ‘Triennale’ floor lamp, and remains perhaps Lelii’s best-known design.
The 1950s were a particularly fertile post-war period for Italian design, and as Arredoluce grew in standing, the company started to collaborate with leading talents of the day, including Franco Albini, Achille Castiglioni, Gio Ponti, Nanda Vigo and Ettore Sottsass.
‘Butterfly’ floor lamp, 1957
The designs from Lelii and his collaborators became known for functional and technical innovations, including adjustable articulated arms (as with the ‘Triennale’ floor lamp), counterweights, pivoting heads, concealed wiring, seamless welds and compact transformers. All this enabled the lights to respond to the diverse and shifting needs of contemporary domestic and office interiors.
‘Perforated Stars’ table lamps (pair), 1950s, from Carpenters Workshop Gallery
Visually, the sleek and elegant designs – pared-back yet sculptural, practical yet gently playful – helped define the modern Italian aesthetic. The lights were carefully crafted rather than mass-produced, and harnessed – among other materials – opaline glass, brass and aluminium.
Lighting combined with art and engineering
Table lamp ‘12398’, 1952, from Antiqua Gallery
Lelii has been praised for taking an approach to lighting that synthesised art, engineering and atmosphere. His other key designs include the ‘Stella’ ceiling light (1950s) – a constellation of softly glowing spheres suspended from brass arms that has been reinterpreted and echoed by many designers since – and the surprising ‘Cobra’ table lamp (1964), a futuristic design based on the image of a cobra swallowing its prey whole.
‘Cobra’ table lamp, 1962, from Antiqua Gallery
Following Lelii’s death in 1979, Arredoluce dissolved – though it was later revived under lighting brand Auralis. Lelii’s designs remain highly collectable, exhibited and sold by galleries including Nilufar, Carpenters, Antiqua and Side Gallery.
Key works by Angelo Lelii
With three adjustable lights that could be flexibly arranged in different configurations, this minimalist ‘Triennale’ floor lamp came in various muted hues to suit interior tastes, and acquired its name from being exhibited at the VIII Triennale di Milano. It was primarily crafted in brass or chrome-plated steel, with aluminium light fixtures. One of Lelii’s earliest designs, it is also his most enduring – and collectable.
‘Stella’ was a series of chandeliers comprising lights in spherical opal glass fixtures attached to radiating brass arms arranged in various star-like compositions. The most common format featured six lights, though versions were made with between four and 12 arms.
This unusual table lamp was characterised by the small star-shaped perforations in the lacquered metal shade (‘stellina’ means ‘little star’ in Italian). The shade can be lifted up from the brass base to reveal the softly glowing light beneath. It is said to have been included in the array of lights that Arredoluce sent to the Kennedy family, the stars perhaps a nod to the American flag.
Lelii sometimes made anthropomorphic or zoomorphic references with his designs, particularly with the ‘Eye’ lamp, which was also known as ‘Polifemo’ after the Italian name for the one-eyed giant (Cyclops) from Greek mythology. The design centres on a spherical, eyeball-like light fixture, which pivots within a socket on a slender metal pole. Lelii designed different versions, including a chrome light with the ‘eyeball’ on top, a three-bulb arrangement with a marble base, and a table lamp.
Drawing on the same visual language as the Eye lamp, the Cobra design is inspired by the way these venomous snakes consume their prey whole, and flare their necks out to form a hood. A vertical brass fixture holds a spherical spotlight in its middle, which – like the Eye design – pivots in its socket.