6-ARM BRASS CHANDELIER ATTRIB. TO PAAVO TYNELL - FINLAND

A stylish, six-arm, brass chandelier with white, perforated metal diffusers and a central downlight. Produced in Canada, probably in the ’50s, and attributed to the great Finnish lighting designer Paavo Tynell. PAAVO VILJO TYNELL (1890–1973) was a Finnish industrial designer whose pioneering work in the first half of the 20th century had a lasting influence on international lighting design. He was born in Helsinki, 12 years after the invention of the domestic lightbulb, at a time when Finland, like most of northern Europe, was yet to be electrified. The seventh of nine children in a working-class family (who could not afford an education for their son beyond primary school), Tynell entered an apprenticeship at G.M. Sohlberg’s metalsmith workshop when he was 16, spending six years as a sheet metal worker and another as a blacksmith, before beginning formal studies at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. His final university project was a light fixture in brass—a material that wou