Buyer’s Guide
and while a considered investment (a genuine leather egg chair will cost in excess of £5000) they are a safe long-term investment, which will only improve with age!
Finn Juhl, a contemporary of Jacobsen, took a more sculptural approach with his wood-frame seats and couches. While founded in the Danish design ethic, his signature style differed from his contemporary. His 1949 Chieftain chair, with leather seats and backs and tongue-like leather flaps on the wooden arms, is one of his most rare pieces, with fewer than 100 believed to have been produced. The majority of those manufactured were created mostly for the Danish embassies and as such remain something of a Holy Grail for collectors. There are many other handsome designs from this quiet genius of design, many still produced today.
Hans Wegner got his break as a designer working in Arne Jacobsen’s office, however quickly made a name for himself. His seemingly limitless imagination created a mind-boggling array of products, but his first love was the humble chair. Over his working career he created literally thousands of designs, many of which sadly never left the pages of his sketch books, however some are also now hailed as both ground-breaking and highly influential. Designs like his Peacock chair from 1947, based on the classic Windsor chair, and the Wishbone chair are still sold worldwide in massive numbers. However Wegner is probably best known for the 1949 Round chair, which was so highly regarded it was used by Nixon and Kennedy in a 1960 presidential debate.
Børge Mogensen designed all manner of office furniture from desks to chairs! All displayed an elegant simplicity that harmonised form with
functionality. His teak Shell chair from 1949 seemed constructed out of the sort of organic shapes you might find in the sand at the beach. Mogensen’s low-slung Hunt chair from 1950 was more straightforward, while his Sleigh chair from 1953 with its sled-like feet and pointed arms that were just whimsical enough to suggest a team of reindeer, could be attached for easy travel!
It’s not just collectors, museums or galleries clamouring for a piece of vintage Danish design these days, the customer base has changed considerably over the past 15 years to include ordinary homeowners who now know the names of different designers and can easily distinguish between them. People today want something different, modern and bold and the endless array of sleek Danish designs more than fulfil the new consumer hunger for the modern look.
If you’re after a piece of original vintage Danish design though you’d better not hang about. Many of the Danish giants of 20th century design are now coming to the ends of their lives, and retrospectives of some of the greatest designers are drawing yet more attention to their work. Prices, it seems, are only going to go up from here, and with contemporary Danish designers still lurking in the shadows of their mid-20th century predecessors, such unique and visionary designs are worth every penny.
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