Midcentury Organic Modern Marianna Von Allesch Modern Ceramic Sculptural Lamp

Stunning Marianna von Allesch modern ceramic table lamp with original custom shade, circa 1948. Exceptional form and color. Single owner, commissioned directly from artist for a Brooklyn estate. This lamp was designed along with another one to frame a lush violet mohair low-slung Wormley-esque sectional sofa in a room that featured two silver gilt walls and red painted rattan pieces, not to mention ceramic murals by von Allesch. Marianna von Allesch was born Maria Anna Steudel on December 3, 1886 in Ingolstadt, Germany. Von Allesch emigrated to the United States in 1928 and by the late 1940s, had established herself as a formidable creative force (in multiple media, most notably ceramic and glass art) that was as admired by curators and fellow artists as she was by interior designers and collectors. The artist trained under Bruno Paul and Adelbert Niemeyer and at the Royal Academy of Arts (now merged in the University of the Arts in Berlin) in the fields of painting, ‘Arts & Crafts’ and textile design. She was particularly taken by the art of glass blowing and ceramics in the years following university. After marrying Gustav Johannes von Allesch, a psychologist from a noble family, she set up a boutique called ‘The Blue House” at #244 Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, where she sold her embroidery, textiles and glass sculptures, in the early to mid-1920s. In 1928, her marriage ended in divorce and she decided to leave Germany for the USA. Maintaining her married name, von Allesch, the artist lived mostly in New York, where she initially ran a studio on East 68th Street. She became known for her avant-garde asymmetrical ceramic pieces, often monumental in size and electrified, glass / ceramic bowls, ashtrays as well as large-scale ceramic wall reliefs (ceramic murals). She eventually became the glass designer for Kensington Crystal Co. and designed the successful furniture line Pulaski Modern Furniture, becoming a known interior designer (for Pulaski Veneer Co. in Virginia) and academic (at the Minneapolis Institute of fine arts) in the decade that followed. In 1956, Marianna von Allesch was commissioned to produce the lamps in the lobby and in the over 400 rooms of the newly built Americana Hotel in Bal Harbor, Miami , designed by architect Morris Lapidus ; The hotel was renamed Sheraton Bal Harbor Miami in 1980 and blown up in 2007 in favor of new buildings. The works of Marianna von Allesch were shown in exhibitions and museums in Europe and the USA. The Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York also acquired some of their works for their collections. Marianna von Allesch died in 1972 in Elmsford, Westchester County, New York.