1970s Mod Bill Currey InterDesign Cylindrical Oak Table Lamps

Notes on Bill Curry:

Bill Curry (1927-1971) was an LA-based designer, who grew up in LA and was later a graduate of the Los Angeles Art Center. His designs were greatly influenced by his exposure to the development of modernism from the 1930s through the space age and rise of pop culture. He was the art director for Ramo-Wooldridge Corp, later known as TRW, focusing on ad and brand work. He founded DesignLine in El Segundo, CA in 1962, a company dedicated "to design and sell innovative products for the home at a reasonable price". Products included small housewares, lamps, organizational items. Curry is credited with the development of the first "total look" lamp form which eliminated the traditional "base-bulb-shade" combination and used the base bulb in a playful, self-contained piece, introducing his products to the market through his company and interDesign, its successor. In addition, he used inspiration from "LA space-pop" to create his Stemlites, lamps with curvy organic bases topped with bare bulbs or extensions of the organic forms in glass to create a "total look" lamp in another form. This design won an Industrial Award which he added to more than 50 other awards in design that he received by 1969. As a result, Curry was recognized as a leading designer before he was 40. Curry died in 1971 at age 43. InterDesign later became part of iDesign, a housewares design company established in 1974 in Solon (outside of Cleveland), Ohio which still produces "products that provide solutions for organizing everyday living spaces" designed by a group industrial designers and engineers.