In 1968, the Chicago Tribune declared: “Exciting new Italian designs in lamps will soon be brightening up Chicago rooms. Their style is by Arteluce, a group of 17 architects and industrial designers who feel a lighting fixture is architecture, and execute each as a piece of art.” Though Arteluce’s lighting designs were surely a revelation to many of the Tribune’s readers, Highland Park residents Jane and Gerald Gidwitz were ahead of the curve, having already installed the present ceiling light in their home’s entryway likely a few years earlier. Gerald Gidwitz was a prominent businessman who founded the Helene Curtis cosmetics company, among other business ventures, and he and his wife Jane were prominent collectors of modern art and design.
“Arteluce, a group of 17 architects and industrial designers, […] feel a lighting fixture is architecture, and execute each as a piece of art.”
—The Chicago Tribune, 1968The couple lived with their four children in the George Pick House, a mansion that stands on the side of a picturesque ravine in Highland Park, Illinois. The house—named after its original owner and designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw—was built around 1915; the Architectural Record photographed the house in 1917 and noted, “this house is remarkable for simplicity in design, judgment in the choice of materials and sound workmanship. Every detail has been carefully designed and conscientiously executed.” The Gidwitzes renovated the interiors and filled it with their modern art and design collection in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, including a Harry Bertoia sculpture, an Alexander Calder tapestry, and other furnishings such as a pair of armchairs by Mario Bellini and a table and Womb armchair by Eero Saarinen. In the entrance loggia, the present Arteluce ceiling light greeted visitors.
The front façade of the George Pick House, Highland Park, 1970s. The present ceiling light can faintly be seen in the entrance loggia. The present ceiling light, designed in 1962, was one of three standard model light fixtures that Studio B.B.P.R. designed for Arteluce. Their lighting designs could be ordered in various configurations and sizes. A review in Domus from June 1963 explains, “a special joint system allows to combine these elements in all sorts of ways, in symmetrical or asymmetrical aggregations.” The present example combines three differently sized cylindrical shades in black painted aluminum.
While the Gidwitz family moved to another residence in 1978, the ceiling light remained installed at the house’s entrance over the next four decades.
Provenance
Jane and Gerald Gidwitz, Highland Park, Illinois, before 1972
Private collection, Highland Park, Illinois, acquired from the above, 1978
Adela and Matthew Lassen, Highland Park, Illinois, acquired from the above, 1982
Acquired from the above by the present ownerLiterature
"Lampade enormi e lampade piccolissime," Domus, no. 403, June 1963, p. 38 for another configuration
Arteluce, sales catalogue, 1966, p. 64
Sarah Medford, "Curtain Up," Architectural Digest, March 2023, p. 99
Property from a Private Midwest Collection
14
Ceiling light, model no. 2045/p, from the Jane and Gerald Gidwitz residence, Highland Park, Illinois
circa 1962
Painted aluminum, painted steel, glass.
24 in. (61 cm) drop, 35 in. (88.9 cm) diameter
Manufactured by Arteluce, Milan, Italy.
Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000
Sold for $60,960
Benjamin Green
Associate Specialist
Associate Head of Sale
bgreen@phillips.com
+1 917 207 9090
Design
New York Auction 8 June 2023
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