Hans Wegner
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Hans J. Wegnerborn in Tonder 1942, is representative of the combination of excellent craftsmanship and commitment to modern living that made mid-century Danish design internationally popular. Hans J. Wegner is the most innovative and prolific of all Danish furniture designers.
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Early Years
He got an early start working as a child apprentice to a carpenter. After serving in the military he went to technical college and then to the School of Arts and Crafts and the Architectural Academy in Copenhagen. Even his earliest objects, like a 1937 design for an exhibit at the Museum of Decorative Arts, an elegant armchair with sloping armrests like relaxed wrists, exhibited Wegner's approach of "stripping the old chairs of their outer style and letting them appear in their pure construction."
Honors
He received almost all major honors given to designers, from the Lunning prize in 1951 and the grand prix of the Milan Triennale in the same year, to the Prince Eugen medal in Sweden and the Danish Eckersberg medal. In 1959 he was made honorary Royal designer for industry by the Royal Society of Arts in London. His furniture is part of all major design museum collections in the world: The Museum of Modern Art in N.Y., Die Neue Samlung in Munich and twenty other Museums.
Chairs
His own chair designs were manufactured primarily by PP Møbler and Carl Hansen & Son, were made with the modern, sculptural idea that they could stand on their own, rather than as parts of a furniture set. The "Peacock" chair from 1947, with a slatted back rest fanning out to evoke the bird's plume, was inspired by the traditional "Windsor" chair. His 1949 folding chair was made to be hung on the wall, and his "Shell" chair from the same year experimented with curving the wood in three dimensions to form the seat. The multi-purpose "Valet" chair, designed in 1953, had elements for hanging up or storing each piece of a man's suit. The backrest is carved to be used as a coat hanger, pants can be hung on a rail at the edge of the seat and everything else can be stowed in a storage space underneath the seat. In 1960 he came out with several variations on the "Ox" chair which came with or without horns, and was a fine example of the line Wegner could masterfully walk between elegance and playfulness. "We must take care," he once said, "that everything doesn't get so dreadfully serious. We must play--but we must play seriously." In more recent years he has continued to design chairs and has also worked with lighting, such as the "Pole" lamp created in 1976 with his daughter Marianne. A true craftsman, Wegner has stated that, "the chair does not exist. The good chair is a task one is never completely done with."
Works
- Peacock Chair (1947)
- Wishbone Chair (1949)
- Flag Halyard Chair (1950),
quotes
"Many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I've answered that it...was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest."
"The chair does not exist. The good chair is a task one is never completely done with."
References
- An article on "Find a Property" (http://www.findaproperty.com/cgi-bin/story.pl?storyid=5599)
- A biography on the web site of R 20th Century Design (http://www.r20thcentury.com/bios/designer.cfm?article_id=101)
- A biography on the web site of Scandinavian Design www. AB (http://www.scandinaviandesign.com/hans_wegner/)