Christian Dell who was born in 1893 in Hanau first learned the profession of goldsmith, then went to the design academy and finally studied at the Saxon College of Arts and Crafts in Weimar. In 1922, Christian Dell came to the Bauhaus where he managed the metal workshop until 1925, and worked together with the Bauhaus artist Marianne Brandt. His works where characterized by innovation and advancement and his style by fluid, organic shapes.
He left Weimar and went to Frankfurt where he was head of the Frankfurt Art School until 1933 when the National Socialists took power. From 1948 to 1955, he had a jewellery shop and led a withdrawn life until his death in 1974.
The Bauhaus artist Dell was made famous by the iconic light fixtures he designed from 1926. Unlike the lights he created in Dessau, Christian Dell's designs were avant-gardist thanks to their organic, fluid style and regularly appeared in the "Das Neue Frankfurt" magazine. Next to the "Rondella" (1927/1928) light and the "Dell Lampe Typ K" (1929), his creations for the manufacturer Kaiser & Co., also known as "Kaiser-idell" became widely known.
The KAISER idell 6631 Luxus table lamp in the Kaiser-idell collection was for a very long time the post-war era's office and working space light fixture par excellence. It is now manufactured in large numbers by the Danish brand Fritz Hansen and is now a popular designer classic together with the other versions in the same collection.