Serge Mouille

Serge Mouille (1922-1988) was born in Paris to a policeman and a seamstress. They were disappointed when he decided, at age 13, to enter the School of Applied Arts silver workshop. He was such a gifted student of metallurgy and silversmithing that began teaching at age 25. After receiving his degree, he apprenticed under Gabriel Lacroix and then started his own workshop.

In 1953 Mouille introduced a lighting design, the iconic Three-Arm Floor Lamp. The design was the result of his expertise with metals, as well as his knowledge of musculature and skeletons, making the lamp both minimal and organic in form.

In 1956, gallery owner Steph Simon began showing Mouille's work alongside pieces by Charlotte Perriand, Isamu Noguchi, and Jean Prouvé. Having learned of Mouille's work, Hollywood star Henry Fonda literally turned up on the designer's doorstep and refused to leave unless he could have a lamp. Even though the designer did not know who Mr. Fonda was, he relented, and the actor then owned the first Mouille lamp to hit U.S. shores.

In 1962, Mouille introduced his Colonnes Collection, columns of fluorescent light which were not well received. In fact, a potential partnership with Knoll fell through as a result of Florence Knoll's opposition to the design, and Mouille stopped designing lights, returning the the School of Applied Arts to teach silversmithing and to design jewelry.

From dwr.com
All images from sergemouilleusa.com

Three-Arm Floor Lamp

Three-Arm Ceiling Lamp

Curved-Arm Rotating Sconce

Saturn Sconce

Snail Ceiling Lamp

Signal Floor Lamp

Totem Floor Lamp

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Adult coloring books for your modernist inner child

My daughter recently gave me an adult coloring book, and I was instantly hooked.

I began to look for modern designs to color and found that there is quite a selection out there. Fellow blogger Jenn Ski offers three books in her Etsy store: Mid-Century Modern Patterns, Mid-Century Modern Mania, and Mid-Century Modern Animals. I have a couple of Jenn's prints on my walls, so naturally I had to order one of her coloring books.

On Amazon, I found Martini Madness: Mid-Century Modern Adult Coloring Book by Lynnda Rakos, Visual Poetry: Modern and Funky Patterns by Nona Meyers, Coloring Zen for the Stressed Out Modernist by Jennifer Zimmerman, the Alexander Girard Coloring Book, and several modern art and tattoo design books. That was just a casual search. Apparently, there are enough books out there to keep us modernists busy for months.

If you haven't already tried adult coloring books, you should. They're incredibly relaxing...and just as much fun as the coloring books of your childhood. Only cooler.

As an interesting aside, a few days before I received my first coloring book, I had found a set of Stabilo Pen 68 markers given to my parents over 30 years ago by their beloved exchange student when they visited him after he returned to Germany and took a tour of his family's factory. The pens had been packed away for decades but still worked as well as a new set. How's that for astounding product quality? I treated myself to a larger set, and now I can express myself in 50 colors.

All images from amazon.com