Custom order: Kurt Østervig cabinet and "Eva" lounge chair by Bruno Mathsson

Kurt Ejvind Østervig was born in 1912 in Odense, Denmark. He was originally trained and worked as a shipbuilding engineer. However, by the 1930s Østervig shifted to furniture design because of his passion for woodworking.

Østervig's career as a furniture designer began at E. Knudsen’s architectural design studio in Odense. In 1947, Østervig opened his first own studio as a freelance furniture designer, with a focus on modern design. In the following decades, he worked with many of the leading Scandinavian furniture producers of the period.

Østervig was exceptionally versatile, designing furniture for hotels, cinemas, and won numerous design competitions during his career. He won awards at the Milan Triennale in 1953 and 1960. In the 1960s, one of Østervig’s designs was selected for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Østervig had a flair for the dramatic, infusing his furnishings with unique elements that stood out. From elegant, organic to coarse and purely functional furniture, his versatility earned him recognition.

Find vintage Kurt Østervig seating, tables, storage cabinets and other furniture on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by H. Gallery)

As the descendant of four generations of Swedish master cabinetmakers, Bruno Mathsson was born to design furniture. Mathsson was known as a methodical perfectionist who made usefulness the fundamental attribute of his iconic lounge chairs, tables, armchairs and other works, yet he was also a ceaseless experimenter, who constantly searched for improvements in form, materials and methods of design.

Like the Finnish designer Alvar Aalto, Mathsson was one of the first Scandinavians to embrace undulating, biomorphic forms in furniture. His early pieces such as the Eva and Pernilla series of chairs incorporate dramatically flowing bent beechwood frames, making them some of the most instantly recognizable works of 20th-century design.

Mathsson was also a pioneer of ergonomics — he is said to have based the contours of his chairs on the impression his body made when he sat in a snow bank — and used supple, accommodating woven webbing for seats. His concern for practicality is shown by pieces such as the Maria table. An elegant design with gate legs and hinged leaves, the table measures more than nine feet long when fully extended, but folds down to just nine inches in thickness.

From the mid-1940s through the 1950s, Mathsson focused on architecture, designing and building houses with insulated, triple-glazed window walls and heated floors — construction that flew in the face of traditional wood-clad Swedish residential design, and consequently met with some skepticism. He returned to furniture in the 1960s, employing an entirely new suite of materials: Stainless-steel framing and mesh seats feature in pieces like the Jetson chair; with the mathematician Piet Hein, Mathsson designed the Super-Elliptical table, which has a laminate top and four-part tubular steel legs that sprout like flower stems from a single base. 

Bruno Mathsson’s stylistic flexibility as a designer made him a creator whose pieces meet all tastes and needs.

Find vintage Bruno Mathsson dining tables, seating and other furniture on 1stDibs.