Greta von Nessen (1900-1975) was the daughter of an architect. Born in Sweden in 1900, she graduated from the School for Industrial Arts in Stockholm and married Walter von Nessen.
In 1923 the couple immigrated to the United States and in 1926 founded Nessen Studios in New York, where they almost exclusively designed and fabricated architectural lighting.
The couple attracted the attention of top architects with their sleek lamp designs and soon rose to prominence in the New York design world, becoming part of the vanguard of modern industrial designers, along with such notables as Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Eliot Noyes, Russel Wright and Gilbert Rohde.
Walter von Nessen's career culminated with the introduction of a series of swing arm lamps, while Greta von Nessen's most famous design is the Anywhere Lamp, which was introduced in 1951. It has been featured on a U.S. postage stamp and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art.
After her husband's death in 1943, Greta von Nessen continued to design lamps out of their studio, now known as Nessen Lighting.
From cooperhewitt.org and nessenlighting.com
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| Table lamp - Walter von Nessen artic.org |
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| Floor lamp - Walter von Nessen modernismgallery.com |
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| Tripod lamps - Walter von Nessen modernism.com |
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| Swing arm lamp - Walter von Nessen 1stdibs.com |
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| Anywhere Lamp - Greta von Nessen 1stdibs.com |
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| Double cone lamp - Greta von Nessen 1stdibs.com |
You might have noticed our Greta von Nessen double cone lamp in a recent post.
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| Greta von Nessen lamp in our entryway |
