Sarah Schleuning, senior curator of decorative arts and design at The Dallas Museum of Art, has delved deep into the rich history of lighting design—a journey she recently shared with Cindi Strauss, the Sara and Bill Morgan curator of decorative arts, craft, and design and assistant director, programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in their exhibition and publication Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting.
Her personal and professional favorite fixture is the Eclissé table lamp by Artemide. Designed in 1966 by Vico Magistretti, this lamp masterfully connects lighting and the bulb with the sun. “The Eclissé features three simple hemispheres: one forming the base, another as the back reflector that houses the bulb, and a third rotating hemisphere that mimics the phases of an eclipse—’eclisse’ in Italian,” she says.
This clever design allows the user to manually control the light by manipulating the eyelid-like shield, offering both a functional and imaginative way to play with light as though transforming the universe’s own light source. “The Eclissé was the first lamp I ever bought, and it has never ceased to amaze me,” she says. “Its purity of form, compact scale, subtle references to the natural world, and the joy and wonder it brings each time I interact with it make it a piece of functional magic. It is a perfect blend of beauty, innovation, and practicality.”
A version of this article originally appeared in “Curator’s Icons” in Sixtysix Issue 13.
