Floor lamps in brass and teak, sometimes with rattan, and pendants like the red and white K2-47: Maria Lindeman (born 1916) drew lights for Idman, Finland’s biggest lighting maker, through the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1953 she entered an Idman lighting competition, and it turned into a full-time job as the company’s artistic designer. Her name first shows up as artist in the 1955 Idman catalogue. Idman was then the largest light manufacturer in Finland, exported around the world, and had just taken over Paavo Tynell’s Taito. She worked alongside Tapio Wirkkala and Mauri Almari, and her range ran from strict modern pendants to more classical shapes.
She was born in Viipuri and studied at the Central School of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, now part of Aalto University, from 1939 to 1945, straight through the war.
Idman stopped making household lighting in 1973 and got rid of some of its production archive. With it probably went most of what could have been known about her later life. What she did after that, and even when she died, is unknown.
- Maria Lindeman
- Born 1916 in Viipuri
- Studied at the Central School of Industrial Arts, Helsinki, 1939 – 1945
- Artistic designer at Idman from 1953; first named in the 1955 catalogue
Sources:
Jonas Forth: Idman, the complete story of a lighting company
Carpenters Workshop Gallery: Maria Lindeman
Read next: Svea Winkler, who drew lamps for Stockmann’s Orno in the same years, and Maija Heikinheimo, who designed lighting for Artek. All lighting designers are here.
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