Gino Sarfatti

Gino Sarfatti was an Italian interior designer. Born on September 16, 1912 in Venice, Italy, he learned the craft of lighting design while working at the Milan-based company Lumen, and later found his own interior design firm Arteluce in 1939. Sarfatti was an innovator in the field of directional lighting, believing that the purpose of a light was in service of illuminating what the user wished. Sarfatti’s lights were almost all numbered, with concurring “nicknames” attributed to them—for example, the 2072 or “yo-yo,” a circular shade, and the 2076 or “fireworks,” a chandelier in which its many lighted ends pointed haphazardly in all directions. The designer also paired lights with household objects and accessories of his own creation, such as ashtrays and walking sticks. In both 1954 and 1955, he won the Golden Compass, and in 1972, Sarfatti was commissioned for what would be one of his final projects: the lighting of the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy using Plexiglass pipes. Late in his life, Sarfatti retired from lighting design to pursue stamp collecting. He died in Gravedona, Italy on March 6, 1985.