What Artemide is known for

Milan lighting company founded 1959 by Ernesto Gismondi and Sergio Mazza, maker of Richard Sapper's 1972 Tizio lamp and Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina's 1986 Tolomeo, both held in MoMA and the Met's permanent collections.

Artemide was founded in 1959 near Milan (in Pregnana Milanese) by Ernesto Gismondi, an aerospace engineer, and designer Sergio Mazza, a pairing that shaped the company's identity as a lighting maker solving structural and technical problems through design. Its two most recognized products are the Tizio desk lamp, designed by Richard Sapper in 1972, and the Tolomeo desk lamp, designed by Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina in 1986 - both are held in the permanent design collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The company frames its design approach as treating illumination as both a technical and an emotional problem.