Attempting to condense the life of Michel Mortier (1925-2015) under a single hat is an exercise doomed to failure, given the man’s many strings to his bow. Design, of course, but also interior architecture, art direction, graphic design and journalism, not to mention teaching.

French designer revolutionises residential lighting

Light is a field in which Michel Mortier has always shown a keen interest and an unrivalled imagination. His style?
A spirit that rejects the anecdotal, an elegant design that tends towards purity, a subtle sense of colour and materials.

In the early 1950s, Michel Mortier designed a series of luminaires that he named with a simple “M”: “M1”, “M2”, “M3“, and so on. They were all produced by the lamp manufacturer Disderot. Each has its own unique characteristics. The M1 floor lamp, for example, is a sort of tripod “pedestal-lighting table”, made up of a lampshade and, halfway up, a wickerwork top. The M4 suspension lamp was one of the first, at the time, to provide three modes of lighting from a single source: “direct” to illuminate the table, “indirect” towards the ceiling to generate ambient light, and “reflected” to gently illuminate the faces of guests.

The creation of the M3 table lamp

In 1952, Michel Mortier designed the M3 desk lamp, which was also available as a wall lamp. Subtly designed, the two-tone lacquered metal shade competes with the carefully curved brass tube base.

The fact that Sammode has chosen to reissue this model today is anything but a coincidence. For many years now, our quest for aesthetic and technological excellence has been reminiscent of that once pursued by Michel Mortier himself. Just as it was, at the time, for a colleague and friend of the designer, Pierre Guariche, of whom Sammode is already reissuing a large collection of lighting. The affinities between Michel Mortier and Sammode are legion. They have a name: innovation.

For this re-edition, Sammode has brought to bear its industrial expertise in the manufacture of luminaires, in particular the precision of its lighting and its in-depth knowledge of metalwork. Faithful to the original design and incorporating contemporary technologies, the M3 lamp by Sammode benefits from exceptional quality and French manufacturing.