Bernard Schottlander

Bernard Schottländer was born in 1924 in Germany, a country he fled in the late 30s to take refuge in London, where he worked as a welder in armament factories. After the war, he attended sculpture courses at Leeds College of Art and St John's Wood with a grant from the Anglo-French Art Center. His past as a welder affected all his work to come, including his collection of Mantis lamps, created in 1951, inspired by Alexander Calder’s mobiles. Their pivot and balance, stem of flexible metal and helical lampshade give Mantis lamps a lightness and unique balance.