Celebrating Ingo Maurer 1932-2019
Industry News October 23, 2019 TiL Editors
The design world mourns the loss of another iconic German designer this year, Ingo Maurer passed away on 21 October 2019 at 87 years old. Notoriously avant garde, Maurer and his Team are known for designing exceptional lighting and lighting systems. His career began with an apprenticeship studying commercial graphics in the 1960s. Maurer gathered his influences from across the globe and worked in the US as a freelance graphic artist, and subsequently travelled to Japan and Brazil before his base became New York. He developed lighting concepts and spectacular unique lamps for private and public buildings. Most famously he launched the iconic Bulb (1966), the low-voltage halogen system YaYaHo (1984) and Lucellino (1992), a winged light bulb.
As well as setting international standards his contributions to the design world were recognised from the Compasso d’Oro to the Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the title Royal Designer of Industry, which he was awarded by the British Royal Society of Arts. Maurer is widely regarded as a pioneer in the development and use of the latest lighting innovations and referred to the light bulb as the ‘ideal symbiosis of poetry and technology’. In 2001 he presented the first task lamp with LEDs and in 2007 the first desk lamp equipped with OLEDs.
“Light can be sensual; it can be comforting; it can even be dangerous. It goes beyond science or nature, or even art – it is as potent as life itself.” Ingo Maurer 1932-2019
His passion and talent never faltered and his final installation, a sweeping chandelier made of more than 3,000 silver-plated leaves, was unveiled in Munich’s Residenztheater on 18 October 2019. Ingo Maurer GmbH is based in Munich, Germany, where a team of over 60 people produce and distribute worldwide. There is a large showroom next to the studio and offices. An exhibition is currently being prepared at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, which from November will provide new insights into his work.