Nelson, one of the most influential figures in 20th-century American design was an architect, designer, writer, teacher and photographer. In the late 1940s, He was obsessed with a spherical lamp. "I wanted one badly," he once wrote of this Swedish-made lamp, which had a wire frame sheathed in silk. When he found one in an import store, its $125 price tag was more than he could afford.


He remembered a photo in a newspaper where sailboats were sprayed with a resinous lacquer to protect them during storage. This was a revelation to him. He managed to contact the manufacturer of this lacquer and then made a structure out of wire. The prototype of the lamp he wanted was finally created. The first Bubble lamp was born.
Nelson's Bubble lamps are familiar icons of modernism. Evocative of paper lanterns, they have a warm simplicity that is always in style. From cigars to saucers, apples to balls, Bubble lamps come in a series of iconic silhouettes.
