Tito Agnoli for O-Luce '255' Desk Lamp

Tito Agnoli for O-Luce, desk light, model '255, nickel-plated metal, Italy, 1958

Practical table lamp with Cornalux bulb designed by Tito Agnoli, 1958. The metal gives the lamp its minimalist look. A very versatile design thanks to the fixing system that can be secured to several tables, but also to pieces such as cabinets and cases.

Tito Agnoli (1931-2012), whose full name is Giovanni Battista Agnoli, is considered one of the most important Italian designers of modern lighting. Agnoli was born in 1931 in Lima, two years after his parents emigrated to Peru in 1929 due to the political situation in Italy where Mussolini's fascistic regime was on the rise. After WWII, Agnoli came to Milan in 1947 and started to take art lessons and enrolled into the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. The mid-century tendency in the art world, with surrealism and abstract expressionism thriving, didn't suit Agnoli's realism. A year later he began to study engineering and architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. During his career, Agnoli worked as an assistant for Gio Ponti and Carlo De Carli. From the fifties onwards, Tito Agnoli, who was still very young, created a series of ambitious creative design projects for O-Luce, Arflex, Poltrona Frau, Matteo Grassi, etc. He has been nominated for the Compasso d’Oro several times during his career. Nowadays, some of his designs are part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York.