Ingo Maurer

Background

Ingo Maurer (12 May 1932 – 21 October 2019) was a German industrial designer who specialised in lamps and light installations and was nicknamed the "poet of light". Born on Reichenau Island, Lake Constance, the son of a fisherman, he trained as a typesetter and studied graphic design in Munich. In 1960 he left for the United States, working as a freelance graphic designer in New York and San Francisco, including for IBM. In 1963 he returned to Germany and founded Design M, later Ingo Maurer GmbH, in Munich.

Signature Style

Maurer treated light with humour, poetry and technical curiosity. His lamps often turn the bare bulb into the hero, add wings or paper, or leave the final form to the user. He was an early experimenter with LEDs (Bellissima Brutta, 1996; EL.E.Dee, 2001) and later with OLEDs, and from 1989 he also created installations not meant for serial production.

Notable Works

• Bulb (1969), acquired by MoMA
• YaYaHo (1984), low-voltage wire lighting system
• Lucellino (1989) and Porca Miseria! (1994)
• Zettel'z (1997), the paper-note pendant
• Lighting for Munich's Westfriedhof (1998) and Münchner Freiheit (2009) U-Bahn stations

Legacy

His work was shown at the Fondation Cartier (1989), the Stedelijk Museum (1993), the Vitra Design Museum (2002) and Cooper Hewitt (2007). Honours include Royal Designer for Industry (2005), the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010) and the Compasso d'Oro for his career (2011). His Munich team continues the company he founded.