Driven by a love for great design, the Paris based company DCW.editions carries a small line of iconic pieces which they have brought back into production. They currently carry La Lampe GRAS (designed in 1922) by Berbard-Albin Grass, the SURPIL chair (designed in the late 1920s) by Julien-Henri Porché and, their most recent addition shown here, the MANTIS lamps (designed in1951) by Bernard Schottländer.

 

 

Born in Germany in 1924, Schottländer moved to England in 1939. Following a stint serving in the British Army in India he took in a Sculpture course at Leeds College of Art and later studied (with the help of a scholarship) at the Anglo-French art center in St. John’s Wood.

 

 

A self described ‘designer for interiors and a sculptor for exteriors’ Schottländer began his career as an industrial designer, during which time, inspired by the mobile works of Alexander Calder, he created the MANTIS lamps in 1951. The fixtures, like the works of Calder, are a clever combination of counterweights, strong yet flexible metal bars and sculptural shades. Perhaps not suprisingly, in his later years, Schottländer chose to concentrate his work solely on sculpture.

 

 

As the company’s latest addition, the MANTIS line, is currently on display along side its sister product, the Lamp GRAS, at this year’s Maison&Objet in Paris.

 

Photos courtesy of DCW.editions.