Award-winning and unmistakable – the lighting design of German designer Ingo Maurer
Ingo Maurer was a multi-award-winning German designer who specialised in lights and lighting design. With his eponymous company Ingo Maurer, he produced experimental and unusual lights that can be found in numerous design museums around the world. Alongside designing lights, Ingo Maurer developed lighting solutions for public spaces as well as light installations.
Ingo Maurer was born in 1932 on the island of Reichenau on Lake Constance in Germany. He first trained as a typesetter in Germany and Switzerland and then studied graphic design in Munich in Germany from 1954 to 1958.
In 1960, Ingo Maurer emigrated to the USA, where he lived and worked as a freelance designer in New York and San Francisco. In 1963, he returned to Europe, and in 1966 he founded "Design M" in Munich. In the years that followed, Ingo Maurer designed his first light, "Bulb".
Several design awards followed, and a number of his lights were included in museum collections. The design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, for example, includes Bulb, Gulp, Light Structure, Little Black Nothing, YaYaHo, Los Minimalos Dos, Lucellino Wall, Wo bist du, Edison…?, Zettel'z and Porca Miseria!.
Alongside product design, Ingo Maurer took an early interest in light installations. In 1985, he created a YaYaHo installation at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in France for the exhibition "Lumières je pense à vous". In 1986, the exhibition "Ingo Maurer: Lumière Hasard Réflexion" was held in Paris, and Ingo Maurer developed a special lighting concept for the exhibition "Design à la Villa Medici" in Rome in Italy. In the same year, the French Minister of Culture made him a "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres".
In 1989, Ingo Maurer showed non-commercial light works for the first time at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Jouy-en-Josas near Paris. In the 1990s, he took part in many exhibitions. In 1998, the magazine "Architektur & Wohnen" named him Designer of the Year 1997, and he also took part in the exhibition "Projects 66" at MoMA in New York.
In 1999, Ingo Maurer worked with the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, developing an installation with special effects for his fashion show at La Villette. He also received the design prize of the state capital Munich. In the early years of the new millennium, Ingo Maurer continued to take part in numerous exhibitions and received many awards. In November 2005, for example, the Royal Society of Arts in London in the UK appointed him a "Royal Designer for Industry". In 2006, this was followed by an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London and further awards.
