MACHINE AGE, WALTER VON NESSEN (1889-1943) DESIGNED FOR PATTYN PRODUCTS PAIR OF TABLE LAMPS, Model 310, spun aluminum with inlaid bands of Bakelite and brass, the piston-like bases having their original ceramic electric sockets, topped with shades comprising six ring-like tiers, lacking interior glass sleeves. Both retain a label for Pattyn Products, Detroit, MI, under the base. Circa 1935. 20" HOA, 8" D shade.
Catalogue Note: Walter Von Nessen was born in Berlin, Germany, where he trained as an architect and designer during the Bauhaus movement. He immigrated to the United States in 1925 and opened Nessen Studios in New York City. 
His furniture and lighting were featured in many seminal modern design exhibitions of the late 1920s and 1930s. These include the 1929 exhibition of tubular metal furniture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Third International Exhibition of Contemporary Industrial Design in 1930, the Design and Industry Exhibition of 1932, and the Paris Exposition of 1937, where he was awarded a gold medal for his lighting exhibit. 
However, Nessen's crowning achievements were his inclusion in the landmark Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition of Contemporary American Industrial Art in 1935 and his invention of the now ubiquitous and classic swing-arm lamp, which is still manufactured today. 
The present Model 310 lamp is represented in many museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Modernism Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Property of a Minnesota family.

Excellent working condition, some minor tarnishing to the medial stems, one interior shade screw will not set but is present, lacking one original nut to the underside of one shade.