Kaiser Idell bureaulamp, ca. 1933 - catalogus - Christian Dell (1893-1974)

Christian Dell
Hanau 1893 -
Wiesbaden 1974
Christian Dell was one of the designers who played a formative role in shaping the Bauhaus style. Before going to the Bauhaus in Weimer in 1922, Christian Dell served an exacting apprenticeship as a silversmith, spending the years 1907-12 at the Schleissner & Söhne silver factory in Hanau as an apprentice while studying at the "Königlich Preußischen Zeichenakademie" in Hanau. In 1913 Christian Dell worked as a silversmith in Dresden before going to the "Kunstgewerbeschule" in Weimar, where he met Henry van de Velde.
After serving in the armed forces, Christian Dell was a journeyman in 1918-20 and then went to work in Munich as a master silversmith for Hestermann & Ernst. In 1920 Christian Dell went to Berlin to work for the silversmith Emil Lettré.
Then Dell returned to Hanau and reenrolled at the "Preußische Zeichenakademie". From 1922 until 1925 Christian Dell was a works master in the metalworking workshop at the "Bauhaus" in Weimar, where he collaborated closely with László Moholy-Nagy and produced numerous designs for office and workplace metal light fittings.
From 1926 until he was dismissed from his post by the National Socialists, Christian Dell was head of the metalworking workshop at the "Frankfurter Kunstschule". There he designed a great deal of lighting, including the "Rondella-Polo" (1926-27) table lamp and the "Idell" range, which was mass produced mainly by Kaiser & Co., Rondella, and, later, also by Bünte & Remmler.