Finn Juhl Fj56 Coffee Table by Niels Vodder

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Finn Juhl Fj56 Coffee Table by Niels Vodder

About the Item

By 1956, Finn Juhl was experiencing some adversity in his career. The collaboration with Baker had ended and Baker was selling off the remaining stock to be out of the market by early 1957. He needed to rebuild his presence in the critical USA export market and he fell back on his old cabinetmaker Niels Vodder to be the producer. Normally, a Copenhagen cabinetmaker would not have the capacity to supply a market so large as the USA, but Vodder had outsourced the production of his high volume pieces, like the FJ45 lounge chair. So after a lull in which he only designed the FJ53 sofa and chair series (which were effectively designed to be outsourced by Vodder, packed in a state of partial assembly, upholstered, and final assembled in New York by the retailer Georg Jensen) Finn set about designing new things for the American market. He showed these new designs in 1955, ‘56, and ‘57 at the Guild exhibitions and also brought Bovirke in to produce a few new designs like the BO116 side chair. And this is when he started blurring the lines between the Bovirke and Niels Vodder production with Bovirke producing wood framed sculptural pieces and Niels Vodder producing some steel leg upholstered pieces. For Danes the ideal height of a coffee table was around 21 inches. You sat in a parlor space and drank coffee at a such a table and that height worked well for a cup and saucer. For Americans such a table was a preposterously tall and unusable table, because the preference was (and still is) for a height of around 17 inches, level with the seat of most sofas and ideal for casual use as an ottoman. One of the failures of Finn’s Baker line was that the coffee tables were Danish height, and ironically he designed a bench, which Baker pressed into service as a coffee table (to this day people mostly call it a coffee table instead of a bench!). So with the FJ56 coffee table, Finn tried to learn his lesson and it is fit for the American market at 17 inches tall! But like with so many of his wonderful designs, the price was a major impediment. Back in 1953 he had designed the BO101 bench for the newly reincarnated Bovirke and it was quite affordable with steel legs and a slab top. Of course, as a bench it was the right height for an American coffee table, and Georg Jensen had been selling it since its introduction. With their newly formed Lunning furniture stores and catalog, they opted to offer the BO101 instead of the FJ56. In Denmark, Niels Vodder’s primary retailer, Illums was featuring the BO101 and did not jump at the opportunity to offer the FJ56. Niels Vodder as a cabinetmaker also had access to a famous collective store called Den Permanente, but in late 1956, the rest of the cabinetmakers on the Board of Directors were very angry with him for outsourcing his furniture and having the temerity to admit it and in such a public place as his new print catalog (most cabinetmakers had nothing more than loose leaf cards in a binder at best). And they forced him to withdraw a well selling chair as a penalty, so that the FJ56 was ever shown at Den Permanente is doubtful. It languished with minimal public exposure. Then in 1960, as the market for Finn Juhl’s expensive furniture was undercut by cheaper alternatives, the Lunning stores in the USA were struggling, and Bovirke chose to go with a different USA retailer, so Lunning lost the BO101 bench / coffee table. And finally, the FJ56 got an opportunity for public exposure. The only problem was that there was now only a limited market for the phenomenally expensive, handmade FJ56. So few sold that, of the ones that have surfaced over the last few years, if you look at the tops, you will notice extremely similar veneer patterns indicating that the veneer was all from adjacent flitches sliced out of the same slab of teak. This suggests that there was one production run and around 1960 to supply Lunning. The signature feature of the FJ56 is the stunning drawer. The front is solid teak beautifully sculpted to nestle against the lipped edge of the coffee table. You can see that the drawer was hand made by the layout knife marks around the dovetails and the slight irregularities. (Overly perfect dovetails were machine cut, slight irregularities are the sign of dovetails cut laid out with a knife and cut with a handsaw). The drawer slides were hand carved with a plane. The drawer on its own is a work of art, yet it comes with a table. This table surfaced in California and is unmarked which is consistent with Lunning as the retailer.

Creator:
Niels Vodder (Cabinetmaker),Finn Juhl (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 17.25 in (43.82 cm)Width: 55.25 in (140.34 cm)Depth: 23.25 in (59.06 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Teak
Place of Origin:
Denmark
Period:
1960-1969
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1960
Condition:
Refinished. Wear consistent with age and use. The top has been cleaned and re-oiled and small veneer chips have been filled.
Seller Location:
Albuquerque, NM
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU7219229936792

Shop All Finn Juhl

Finn Juhl

Along with Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen and Børge Mogensen, Finn Juhl was one of the great masters of mid-20th-century Danish design. Juhl was the first among that group to have his work promoted overseas, bringing the character of the nation’s furnishings — and the inherent principles of grace, craftsmanship and utility on which they were based — to an international audience. A stylistic maverick, Juhl embraced expressive, free-flowing shapes in chair and sofa designs much earlier than his colleagues, yet even his quietest pieces incorporate supple, curving forms that are at once elegant and ergonomic.

As a young man, Juhl hoped to become an art historian, but his father steered him into a more practical course of study in architecture. He began designing furniture in the late 1930s, a discipline in which, despite his education, Juhl was self-taught, and quite proud of the fact. His earliest works, designed in the late 1930s, are perhaps his most idiosyncratic. The influence of contemporary art is clear in Juhl's 1939 Pelican chair: an almost Surrealist take on the classic wing chair. Critics reviled the piece, however; one said it looked like a "tired walrus." Juhl had tempered his creativity by 1945, when the Danish furniture-making firm Niels Vodder began to issue his designs. Yet his now-classic NV 45 armchair still demonstrates panache, with a seat that floats above the chair’s teak frame.

Juhl first exhibited his work in the United States in 1950, championed by Edgar Kaufmann Jr., an influential design critic and scion of America’s most prominent family of modern architecture and design patrons. (Kaufmann’s father commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright’s design of the house “Fallingwater.”) Juhl quickly won a following for such signature designs as the supremely comfortable Chieftan lounge chair, the biomorphic Baker sofa, and the Judas table, a piece ornamented with stylish inlaid silver plaquettes.

As you will see from the offerings on 1stDibs, Finn Juhl’s furniture — as well as his lighting, ceramics, tableware and accessories — has an air of relaxed sophistication and elegance that is unique in the realm of mid-20th-century design.

Shop All Niels Vodder

Niels Vodder

One of the greatest cabinetmakers in Denmark, Niels Vodder had an illustrious career in Danish furniture. And just as like-minded duos Kaare Klint and Rudolph Rasmussen or Hans Wegner and Johannes Hansen had, Vodder — in partnership with Finn Juhl for more than 20 years — set a high standard for Scandinavian modernism.

Vodder had already established his position as an in-demand cabinetmaker by the time Juhl came into his small workshop in 1937. Juhl — a pioneer of 20th-century Danish design and a pivotal figure in the introduction of Danish modern in the United States — had often authored technically complicated designs that other woodworkers found impossible to execute. Vodder, however, would prove otherwise through his skill and ingenuity. Together, the two ushered in an era of innovative Danish design to an international audience at annual Cabinetmakers’ Guild exhibitions in Copenhagen.

Some of Juhl’s most iconic lounge chairs, such as the NV 45 chair and the Chieftain chair, were first built by Vodder. Most of the seating executed by Vodder was done in teak, although some chairs were handcrafted in mahogany, rosewood and other attractive woods. The Chieftain, formally the FJ 49 A, won the Danish Design Award in the “Classic” category, while the NV 45 can be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Juhl’s FJ 51 chair was featured in the United Nations Trusteeship Council chamber — designing and furnishing the chamber was one of Juhl’s notable accomplishments in the early 1950s.

One of the keys to the pair’s success lay in the combination of Juhl’s self-taught approach and Vodder’s progressive outlook on his trade. The latter's workshop was modest in size and he was a pioneer with respect to the use of subcontractors in manufacturing, while Juhl had no formal training in furniture design. Juhl's early ambition was to pursue art history; instead, at his father’s request, he earned a degree in architecture. His studies and enthusiasm for art resulted in inspired pieces that were free from traditional norms, while Vodder possessed the technical prowess to refine and bring these ideas to fruition.

As Ejnar Pedersen — founder of P.P. Møbler — once said, “ (I)f we had no Niels Vodder, we would not have had the Finn Juhl we know today.” Vodder passed away in 1982.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Niels Vodder seating, tables and case pieces.