Josef Frank Stool in Dark Stained Elm Manufactured by Fritz Hansen

View Similar Items

Fritz Hansen Three Legged Stool by Josef Frank in Elm Wood, 1945, Denmark

Fritz Hansen Adjustable Height Stools

Josef Frank, Stool, Svenskt Tenn, 1950s

White Painted Stool, Josef Frank Upholstery

Josef Frank Stools Model 973 Produced by Svenskt Tenn in Sweden

Josef Frank Three Legged Stool

Rare Thonet B 313 Stool by Josef Frank

Midcentury stool by Josef Frank, Svenskt Tenn, Sweden, 1950s

Josef Frank stool model 1034 by Firma Svenskt Tenn, Sweden

Josef Frank stool model 972 by Firma Svenskt Tenn, Sweden

Josef Frank stool model 1063 by Firma Svenskt Tenn, Sweden

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 12

Josef Frank Stool in Dark Stained Elm Manufactured by Fritz Hansen

About the Item

Rare Josef Frank stool in dark stained elm manufactured by Fritz Hansen in the 1940’s. The stool is in good condition with signs of use and is ready to be taken in use. This stool is the perfect feature for any interior and fits many styles from Wabi Sabi to a more traditional Scandinavian interior to a more modern interior. Josef Frank (born July 15, 1885 in Baden bei Wien, Austria, died January 8, 1967) was an Austrian-Swedish architect, designer and professor of architecture in New York. He was one of the pioneers of functionalism. Frank studied architecture in 1908 at the Technische Universität Wien and then practiced, among other things, with Bruno Möhring in Berlin. In the period 1919-25, Josef Frank worked as a teacher at the Vienna University of Applied Arts, where he worked with architecture and design. Among Frank's early architectural works are workers' settlements in Ortmann, Pernitz (1919-1921). In 1927 he was represented at the exhibition Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart and in 1932 he was mainly responsible for the housing exhibition Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna. Around 1910, Frank began developing and designing furniture and textiles that matched his interior design ideals. He came into contact with the Swedish designer company Svenskt Tenn's founder Estrid Ericson in the late 1920s. When Frank was forced into exile due to his Jewish origins in 1933, he traveled to Stockholm. Here he primarily worked with furniture and interior design and he designed furniture, wallpaper patterns and home textiles for Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm. Fritz Hansen A/S is an internationally renowned Danish furniture manufacturer that was founded in 1872 by master carpenter Fritz Hansen (1847-1902). The company is headquartered in Allerød. Fritz Hansen was trained as a joiner and cabinet maker in his hometown of Nakskov and at the age of 25 he went to the capital, where he became a citizen in 1872. The actual furniture production started a few years later in 1885 in Copenhagen and within a few years became a thriving business at Christianshavn in the central part of Copenhagen. In 1896, the business was expanded considerably, as Fritz Hansen acquired a plot of land in Lillerød, where two years later he opened his own sawmill (Lillerød Sawmill). In 1899, Fritz Hansen's son and successor, Christian E. Hansen (1874-1954), took over the company, which then employed 50 people. The founder died in 1902, aged only 55. In 1915, Christian E. Hansen was one of the first to introduce steam-bent wood, which later became classics such as Arne Jacobsen's Myren og Syveren (3107), but which is also included as an element in many other Danish design classics. In the 1920s and 1930s, the company began to move from a craft business to an industrialized one, and at the same time began experiments with tubular steel furniture following the example of Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Christian E. Hansen acted as a designer himself, i.a. of a series of functionalist oak furniture and of the well-known Canada chair (1940, model FH 2252), but gradually began a collaboration with the designers of the time. Ove Boldt designed the Windsor chair (1942, model FH 1638). Chr. E. Hansen had three sons, two of whom joined the family company in 1928: Poul Fritz Hansen (1902-1987), Søren Christian Hansen (1905-1977). Later, the youngest brother Knud Marius Hansen (1911-?) also joined the family business. The brothers' educations complemented each other well: Fritz was trained as a chair maker, Søren received a business education and Knud became a foreman. Poul and Søren Hansen became co-owners in 1933. Poul became manager of the furniture factory, while his brother Søren took care of the administration and the exhibition. During the Occupation, a shortage naturally arose, and much of the furniture from the war years was produced with imaginative use of what was available. Among other things. The straps on 1940s furniture are often made of paper. Poul Hansen revolutionized Danish furniture design when he had leading architects of the time design furniture for him. With Arne Jacobsen's molded chair from 1951 was the beginning of an extensive collaboration with the designers of the time, which put Fritz Hansen at the forefront of the Danish Design export wave in the 1950s and 1960s. The production included furniture by Børge Mogensen, Hans J. Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Mogens Lassen and Ole Wanscher. In 1954, Christian E. Hansen died. In 1955, the company was transformed into a limited company and in the same year Fritz and Søren Hansen became directors (shared management) and members of the board for this. They were directors until 1975. From the 1970s until today, the collaboration with the furniture architects of the time has continued and has, among other things, included Verner Panton, Nanna Ditzel and Kasper Salto, Piero Lissoni, Piet Hein/Bruno Mathsson. In 1982, the Poul Kjærholm collection was taken over.

Creator:
Fritz Hansen (Manufacturer)
Attributed to:
Josef Frank (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 14.97 in (38 cm)Width: 15.36 in (39 cm)Depth: 15.36 in (39 cm)Seat Height: 14.97 in (38 cm)
Style:
Scandinavian Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Elm,Stained
Place of Origin:
Denmark
Period:
1940-1949
Date of Manufacture:
1940s
Condition:
Refinished. Wear consistent with age and use. Later stained and refinished by a professional danish cabinetmaker.
Seller Location:
Valby, DK
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU6559233472452

Shop All Fritz Hansen

Fritz Hansen

When the Copenhagen-based furniture maker Fritz Hansen opened for business more than 140 years ago, the company — which today styles itself The Republic of Fritz Hansen — adhered to the traditional, time-honored Danish values of craftsmanship in woodworking and joinery. Yet thanks to the postwar innovations of Arne Jacobsen and others, Fritz Hansen would become the country’s leader in Scandinavian modern design using new, forward-looking materials and methods.

Fritz Hansen started his company in 1872, specializing in the manufacture of small furniture parts. In 1915, the firm became the first in Denmark to make chairs using steam-bent wood (a technique most familiar from birch used in the ubiquitous café chairs by Austrian maker Thonet). At the time, Fritz Hansen was best known for seating that featured curved legs and curlicue splats and referenced 18th-century Chippendale designs.

In the next few decades, the company promoted simple, plain chairs with slatted backs and cane or rush seats designed by such proto-modernist masters as Kaare Klint and Søren Hansen. Still, the most aesthetically striking piece Fritz Hansen produced in the first half of the 20th century was arguably the China chair of 1944 by Hans Wegner — and that piece, with its yoke-shaped bentwood back- and armrest, was based on seating manufactured in China during the Ming dynasty. (Wegner was moved by portraits he’d seen of Danish merchants in the Chinese chairs.)

Everything changed in 1952 with Arne Jacobsen’s Ant chair. The collaboration between the architect and Fritz Hansen officially originated in 1934 — that year, Jacobsen created his inaugural piece for the manufacturer, the solid beechwood Bellevue chair for a restaurant commission. The Ant chair, however, was the breakthrough.

With assistance from his then-apprentice Verner Panton, Jacobsen designed the Ant chair for the cafeteria of a Danish healthcare company called Novo Nordisk. The chair was composed of a seat and backrest formed from a single piece of molded plywood attached, in its original iteration, to three tubular metal legs. Its silhouette suggests the shape of the insect’s body, and the lightweight, stackable chair and its biomorphic form became an international hit.

Jacobsen followed with more plywood successes, such as the Grand Prix chair of 1957. The following year he designed the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen and its furnishings, including the Egg chair and the Swan chair. Those two upholstered pieces, with their lush, organic frames made of fiberglass-reinforced polyurethane, have become the two chairs most emblematic of mid-20th-century cool. Moreover, the Egg and Swan led Fritz Hansen to fully embrace new man-made materials, like foam, plastic and steel wire used to realize the avant-garde creations of later generations of designers with whom the firm collaborated, such as Piet Hein, Jørn Utzon (the architect of the Sydney Opera House) and Verner Panton. If the Fritz Hansen of 1872 would not now recognize his company, today’s connoisseurs certainly do.

Find a collection of vintage Fritz Hansen tables, lounge chairs, sofas and other furniture on 1stDibs.