Native American Table Lamps

Vanessa Weber Interior Design Expert

Vanessa is a New York-based designer specializing in architectural lighting. Whether you are planning an event, want to illuminate your backyard retreat or simply need advice on what lamp to purchase for your bedroom, Vanessa will be more than happy to share her knowledge and expertise.

Updated 06/05/2021

Native American furniture styling is not only lovely but very functional. But a Native American table lamps are something else entirely. They are beautiful and useful, but they also tell a story. And when you put one of these Native American table lamps in your home, you will feel the rich history every time you turn on the switch and illuminate the space.

Buying Guide

There’s something mysteriously alluring about Native American art that makes everyone from fashion designers to abstract artists go weak in the knees. Be it the geometric shapes, the vivid use of color, the sacred religious objects or deities, the use of symbols to retell myths or art forms depicting spirit animals, just about everything that’s native-inspired makes for great décor pieces.

This explains the rising fascination that interior designers have with Native American Table lamps. Table lamps are often considered the secret ingredient in interior light layering. And they can be used for just about any purpose, be it aesthetics, as accent pieces, as task lights or as ambient lights.

And what better than a southwest raw hide lampshade, a dreamcatcher or a Cherokee Teepee to adorn your room. If this is the first time that you are shopping for native American lighting fixtures, then here are some of the factors to consider before you buy.

What are the most common designs of Native American table lamps?

The tepee from the Great Lakes is one of the most commonly used lampshade designs. It can be made of canvas, sheer fabric or raw hide. Canvas and hide offer a diffused ambient lighting whereas sheer fabric, cardboard and wicker offer a more intense light better suited for task lighting. Hand painted motifs and figurines on lampshades can cast a silhouette of attractive shadows on the walls.

And then there’s the base. Right from wooden poles, spears, bow arrows, shamanistic figurines to feathers, horns and beads, there are tons of objects that are used to create native American-inspired lamp bases.

If you are buying a vintage lamp, then there’s a good chance that the base would be made of brass, bronze or copper, which makes it sturdy but heavy. Modern reproductions are lightweight and can be made of wood, plastic or composite materials. These are flimsy though.

How to pick the right size table lamp?

Pick a lamp that’s in proportion with the room and the table that you will place it on. Anything oversized in a small room will be an eyesore and anything way too tiny in a large room will easily be missed, negating the very purpose that you bought it for.

Other than this, use the eye level rule while selecting a lamp. The lamp should be placed high enough so that the bottom of the lampshade lines up with your eyes when you are sitting on a sofa or an accent chair. This prevents a harsh light beam into your eyes and works perfectly even if you’d want to use it as a reading lamp.

For the bedroom, we modify this rule a little. The bottom of the lampshade should line up with your chin when you sit up. That’s about 18-inches above the top of your mattress. Anything higher and it will cast a glare directly in your eyes.