Private Collections

Masters of Light: John and Sylvia Reid’s Post-War Lighting

13 October 2026

Philip Smith

The Reids’ path from exhibition work to commercial lighting can be traced through the tripod lamp created for the Festival of Britain. Manufactured by Thorn Electrical Industries, it emerged at a time when the company was expanding its lighting interests.

Thorn had acquired George Forrest & Son in 1950, and in 1952 John Reid designed the Forrest Modern range, with Sylvia designing the catalogues. Soon afterwards, they began crediting their architectural and design work jointly.

That decision matters when looking back at their careers. Early commissions sometimes carry an individual attribution, but their mature practice was founded on shared authorship. The design of a fitting and the way it was presented to architects, retailers and customers were parts of the same undertaking.

Forrest Modern received coverage in D. Dewar Mills’s article ‘Light Fittings’, published in The Architectural Review in November 1952. It introduced the range to an architectural readership at a time when manufacturers were seeking a place in the growing market for contemporary interiors. The article also provides a valuable record of the Reids’ lighting before their better-known association with Rotaflex.

Illustrated: John and Sylvia Reid, circa 1955–56. Reproduced with kind permission of John & Sylvia Reid LLP.

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Rotaflex Lighting: New Materials and Modern Lampshades

Bernard Stern founded Rotaflex Great Britain in July 1953. An artist who also developed a substantial business career, Stern recognised the commercial possibilities of a Danish process for producing lightweight, translucent lampshades. By around 1954–55, the Reids were working as his principal design consultants.

The process gave them considerable freedom of form. Cellulose acetate filament was wound around a wooden former and bonded to create a self-supporting shade, its surface defined by closely spaced ribs. Patented in 1946 by the Danish engineers Bent Højberg-Pedersen and Bent Panker, the technique was subsequently licensed to manufacturers internationally. Cylinders, globes and elongated forms could all be produced using the same underlying method.

For a designer, the appeal extended beyond shape. The material itself became part of the lighting effect, filtering the bulb through successive strands of translucent plastic. The Reids used this quality with restraint. In their pendant, table and floor lamps, the volume of the shade was balanced against a spare supporting structure. Decoration came from the ribs, the proportions and the passage of light.

The Ovoid Lampshade and International Recognition

The Reids’ ‘Ovoid’ shade received a Council of Industrial Design Design of the Year award in 1957. Its rounded profile demonstrated how effectively a relatively simple manufacturing process could produce a distinctive domestic object.

Rotaflex also places the Reids within a wider European history. The manufacturing process crossed national borders, while designs circulated between related businesses. Two Reid lamps entered the Disderot catalogue in France in 1957, including a brass-and-glass pendant whose earlier version had appeared in the British Forrest Modern range.

British lighting was participating in an international exchange of designs, materials and manufacturing expertise.

British Lighting in the 1960s: Aluminium and Adjustable Spotlights

The Reids’ lighting was not confined to translucent plastic. Their adjustable spotlights for Rotaflex received a Design Centre Award in 1961.

Natural anodised aluminium housings, black metal components and white enamel revealed another aspect of their work: precise adjustment and the careful distinction between materials. These fittings connected the domestic experimentation of the 1950s with the more technical architectural lighting of the following decade.

Illustrated above: 1 - John & Sylvia Reid Exhibition photographed by Margaret Howell| 2 - John and Sylvia Reid, circa 1955–56 | 3 - John & Sylvia Reid Exhibition photographed by Margaret Howell | 4 - Forrest Modern Catalogue From 1954 | 5 - Forrest Modern Floor Lamp, circa 1952, shown in the first Forrest Modern catalogue, 1953. | All reproduced with kind permission of John & Sylvia Reid LLP. | John Reid (British 1925–1992) for George Forrest & Son, London Forrest Modern Floor Lamp, c.1952–54, Lyon & Turnbull

Department

Modern Design

Bernard Schottlander’s Mantis Lamps and Peter Nelson’s Architectural Lighting

Other designers responded differently to the opportunities of the period. Bernard Schottlander brought a sculptor’s understanding of balance to his Mantis lamps, conceived in 1951. An admirer of Alexander Calder, he used counterweights, slender metal arms and shaped reflectors to give the adjustable lamps an unusually animated presence. Their mechanics were integral to their appearance: the reach of an arm and the poised weight of a shade supplied much of their character.

Peter Nelson’s work took a more explicitly engineering-led direction. Having made precision aircraft models, he founded Architectural Lighting in 1961. His aluminium fittings made adjustment and construction readily apparent, with cylindrical heads and economical supports suited to both domestic and professional interiors. The company’s history traces the progression from his early Series S to Series A in 1967.

These designers worked within an extensive manufacturing industry. Troughton & Young, Atlas Lighting, Merchant Adventurers, Hiscock & Appleby, G.E.C. and Falk Stadelmann all belong to the broader story. Their presence helps explain the variety of surviving British lighting, from sculptural metalwork and translucent plastic shades to adjustable reading lamps and fittings developed for specific architectural uses. There was ample room for individual invention within this expanding field.

Collecting Post-War British Lighting

For collectors, this variety makes documentation especially valuable. A familiar shade may survive with an unfamiliar base, while a design may appear in more than one catalogue. Rotaflex is a particular case in point, since the name was associated with both a manufacturing process and several businesses. Original advertisements, catalogues, labels and provenance can therefore help establish the identity of an individual fitting.

The Reids’ achievement is clearest when their lamps are considered as objects intended for use. Their proportions were judged for rooms, their shades for the light they transmitted and their structures for the demands of manufacture and adjustment.

A Rotaflex pendant can still hold a room through the simplest means: a well-drawn outline, a ribbed surface and the glow of the material itself. The Reids helped give post-war Britain a new way of seeing the modern home through lighting.

Selected Bibliography

Jackson, Lesley. Modern British Furniture: Design Since 1948. V&A Publishing, 2013, p. 119.
Jackson, Lesley. Robin & Lucienne Day: Pioneers of Contemporary Design. Mitchell Beazley, 2001, pp. 47 and 51.
‘Homes & Gardens’. Design, no. 31, July 1951, Council of Industrial Design, pp. 18–19.
Dunnett, H. McG. ‘Three Types of Team-work’. Design, no. 64, April 1954, Council of Industrial Design, p. 9.
Dewar Mills, D. ‘Light Fittings’. The Architectural Review, November 1952, pp. 314 and 320.
Hodin, J. P. Bernard Stern: Paintings and Drawings. Three Eagles Publications Limited, 1972, pp. 14–15.
Gregson, Tom. ‘Plastic Lighting Fittings’. Design, no. 83, November 1955, Council of Industrial Design, p. 24.

Specialist

Philip Smith

Director, Head of Modern & Post-War Art & Design

Service

Masters of Light: John and Sylvia Reid’s Post-War Lighting

Discover our Private Collections Department

Rotaflex Lighting: New Materials and Modern Lampshades

The Ovoid Lampshade and International Recognition

British Lighting in the 1960s: Aluminium and Adjustable Spotlights

Modern Design

Bernard Schottlander’s Mantis Lamps and Peter Nelson’s Architectural Lighting

Collecting Post-War British Lighting

Selected Bibliography

Philip Smith

Private & Corporate Collections