Scandinavian Chairs by Hans Wegner, circa 1955
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Scandinavian Chairs by Hans Wegner, circa 1955
$4,600List Price
About the Item
- Creator:Hans J. Wegner (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 30.32 in (77 cm)Width: 18.12 in (46 cm)Depth: 18.12 in (46 cm)Seat Height: 17.72 in (45 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:Circa 1965
- Condition:Reupholstered. Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:VILLEURBANNE, FR
- Reference Number:Seller: 63371stDibs: LU8469240452912
Hans J. Wegner
Best known for his chairs and other seating pieces — though a master of many furniture types like sofas and tables — Hans Wegner was a prolific designer whose elegant, often ebullient, forms and devotion to the finest methods in joinery made "Danish Modern" a popular byword for stylish, well-made furniture in the mid-20th century.
Wegner considered himself a carpenter first and a furniture designer second. Like his peers Arne Jacobsen and Finn Juhl, Wegner believed that striking aesthetics in furniture were based on a foundation of practicality: a chair must be comfortable and sturdy before it is chic.
In keeping with that tenet, several of Hans Wegner’s best chair designs have their roots in traditional seating forms. The Peacock chair (designed in 1947) is a throne-like adaptation of the Windsor chair; pieces from the China chair series (begun in 1944) as well as the 1949 Wishbone chair, with its distinctive Y-shaped back splat, are derived from 17th-century Ming seating pieces, as is the upholstered Ox chair (1960). Wegner’s comfy Papa Bear chair (1951) is an almost surreally re-scaled English wingback chair.
Wegner’s most representative piece, the Round chair (1949), gained a footnote in political history when it was used on the TV stage of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960. That chair, along with Wegner’s more bravura designs — for example, the 1963 Shell chair, with its curved surfboard-shaped seat — bring a quietly sculptural presence to a room.
Wegner was a designer who revered his primary material — wood — and it shows. His wood gathers patina and character with age; every Hans Wegner piece testifies to the life it has led.
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40 years of Danish furniture design: 1947-1956, ed. Grete Jalk, vol. 3 (Copenhagen: Lindhardt og Ringhof, 1987), pp. 15-17.
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Modeled after a traditional American Windsor chair, Hans Wegner’s Peacock chair strips the form to reveal its construction while retaining aesthetic, decorative impact. The chair reveals a modernist approach to designing around the human body and using natural materials, with one exception. The “rush” seat is actually made of paper cord: when the chair was first designed in 1947, shortages caused by World War II prevented Wegner from using jute. Fellow designer Finn Juhl gave the nickname of ‘Peacock,’ seeing the chair’s flattened spindles and magnificent arc resembling the bird’s plumage.
Dimensions:
41 3/4 in. H × 27 1/2 in. W × 20 1/2 in. D
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Floor to top of seat: 14 in.
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Condition: Excellent, with some minor wear throughout. Wood splits to three of the seat joints measuring 1 inch, 1/2 and 1/4 inch on either side, and 1/4 inch. Area of discoloration to arm, possibly from sticker, measuring approximately 3/4 inch. Some nicks to side of one arm. On the other arm, a scratch measuring 1 1/8 inches on the side.
Literature:
40 years of Danish furniture design: 1947-1956, ed. Grete Jalk, vol. 3 (Copenhagen: Lindhardt og Ringhof, 1987), pp. 15-17.
Arne Karlsen, Danish Furniture Design: in the 20th Century, vol. 2 (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 2007), p. 90.
Christian Holmsted Olesen, Wegner: Just One Good Chair (Germany, Hatje Cantz Verlag GmbH & Company KG, 2014).
Johan Møller Nielson, Wegner en Dansk Møbelkunstner (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1965), pp. 42, 98, 103, 106.
Noritsugu Oda, Danish Chairs (San Francisco: Chronicle Books), 1996, pp. 106, 107.
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