Lot 160 Gilbert Watrous Table Lamp
Gilbert Watrous
by Dave Hampton
A few design treasures connected to San Diego, the Esoteric Survey base of operations, can be found rather discreetly embedded within the one hundred and twenty-three lots Steve has selected/approved for the November 15th Design auction at LAMA. They almost all come from the hands of Allied Craftsmen* members and date from the 1960s and 1970s, with the notable exception of a table lamp made by the Heifetz Co. of New York that derives from Gilbert Watrous' celebrated contribution to the 1950 MOMA lighting competition.
A San Diego-based designer, who grew up in Escondido and attended San Diego State College (now University), the 31-year old Watrous was completing a course of study at the Chicago Institute of Design when the contest was announced. The museum quickly received more than 600 entries from 43 states of which just eight table lamps and two floor lamps were selected and made ready for production through cooperative teamwork among the designers, manufacturer (Yasha Heifetz) and museum staff.
Watrous received the $500 "Special Prize for floor lamps" that came with a small future royalty percentage on sales of his design. That was like First Place or Best in its class but curiously the whole program was geared to produce table lamps, offering more prizes (worth twice as much money) for designs in that category "...because of greater demand."
All ten of the award winning lamps and sixteen of the design competition drawings went on display in the New Lamps exhibition at MOMA March 27, 1951 and the exhibition press release described Watrous' design:
"The base of this lamp is a small metal tripod on top of which rests a metal ball held in its socket by magnetism. The main stem of the lamp, with a counterweighted handle at the low end, passes through this metal ball at an angle; since the ball revolves in the socket, it is possible to adjust the lamp to almost any position."
As the only floor-standing exhibits, the Watrous model and AW and Marion Geller's honorable mention-winning design certainly stood out. Watrous' floor lamp became part of the 1951 Good Designshow and was accessioned into MOMA's collection the same year.
But after the Heifetz Co. got hold of his magnetized-ball-in-a-socket-on-a-counterweighted-stem solution (patented in 1951), it seems they had a good time using it to connect various shades and bases which are visibly distinct from the original "prize-winning" design, and which are mostly, yep... table lamps.
After a few years Watrous decided to combine his cross-border lifestyle and appreciation for Mexican material culture with his design background in a 1962 retail venture called La Piña. With a good location on Prospect Street, his shop offered "the best in traditional and contemporary design from Mexico." In addition to art and objects, decorative accessories and gifts, clothes and linens, Watrous provided interior design services and designed Spanish colonial furniture and carved wood doors, produced in Mexico to his specification.
*For more on the Allied Craftsmen, see:
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/san-diegos-craft-revolution/author/dave-hampton/