Via 1stdibs a Berlin seller offers this GE 375 Easy Chair by Hans J. Wegner (designed for Getama) for sale at Euro €2,750.
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Chairs!
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Tag: Hans J. Wegner
Henry Fisker passed away
Henry Fisker
Fisker with WegnerI found this in memoriam today on the FaceBook page of PPMoebler
A legend in Danish woodworking has left us.
Cabinetmaker Henry Fisker was born February 21, 1928 in Vejen, Denmark, and in his childhood he got a close friend in the neighbor’s 5 year older boy Ejnar Pedersen. Henry was trained cabinetmaker from Schou Andersen in Vejen and then moved to Allerød, north of Copenhagen, to work with Ejnar and Ejnar’s big brother Lars Peder Pedersen. They first worked at Knud Willadsen’s workshop at Gl. Lyngevej, where Henry and the two brothers were a major driving force. But when Knud’s workshop burned down and had to close, Ejnar and Lars Peder founded PP Møbler on the corner of Toftevej and Vestvej. Shortly after the new small workshop was completed, Henry was recruited and developed a unique lifework by thoroughly and stubbornly building a craft culture with an uncompromising attitude to quality and a relentless appetite to solve all kinds of craft challenges – including those apparently impossible.
Wood was the fascination for Henry, and he meticulously analyzed the properties of each type of wood in order to obtain the optimal utilization of their qualities and adapt his machine layouts to perfect the processing of each item. Understanding wood and how it behaves when working with it was the objective, and for Henry, machinery was the tool, and he worked intensely and ambitiously to find the best technical solution to a craft challenge. His work was very tangible, but the ideas behind was always innovative and imaginative, and when he worked with the most difficult tasks, Henry often wished he could get around the laws of gravity.
Henry has made a great number of prototypes and productions of furniture designed by designers, artists and architects such as Poul Kjærholm, Finn Juhl, Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, Nanna Ditzel, Ole Gjerløv Knudsen and many others, but most of his work has been focused on development and production of furniture designed by Hans J. Wegner, with whom Henry enjoyed a lifelong friendship. Wegner and Henry had a deep mutual understanding of the craft and a common fascination of wood both as an element of nature and as a material for the craftsman.
Henry, or Fisker as he was called, worked at PP Møbler continuously for more than 50 years and in 2004 he received the Queen’s honorary medal for faithful service. Henry was stubborn and always told his opinion straight, also to the management, and he generously shared his knowledge. He has been a key driving force in building the exceptional quality for which PP Møbler has become world-renowned, and he stands as a brilliant representative of the very spirit of the workshop.
Despite his immense experience, however, he never stopped learning, and he continued to allow himself new insight; as he said: “I’ll never be done with wood. Being a skilled woodworker is a lifelong education”.
Henry Fisker died at the age of 91.
PP530 Tub Chair by Hans J. Wegner
The green PP530 Tub Chair by Hans Wegner I saw in the Design Museum Danmark in Kopenhagen.
PP Mobler about it:
Conceived in 1954 the Tub Chair was a pioneering experiment, and it turned out to be the most advanced shell chair design Wegner ever did, as the back of the chair is a complicated double bent shell comprising two individual shapes: One that is bent and one that is both bent and twisted.
Even besides the complexity of the back, the Tub Chair is a unique fusion, where Wegner merge the moulded plywood technique with upholstery and traditional work in solid wood and even adding a metal angle adjustment mechanism for the back. It is one of the most striking and brilliant examples of Wegner’s vision and courage, and still it is a most practical, usable and comfortable chair.
However, the Tub Chair was not technically possible to produce in a rational way within the lifetime of Wegner. As our techniques have developed, PP Møbler has been able to produce this great tribute and introduce this bold design in celebration of the 100 years anniversary of Wegner, one of the greatest designers of all times.
The black one I found at the auction site of Phillips where an early model was sold for UK pound 50,000 in October 2015
The Catalogue about it:
The present lot is one of two known period examples of the ‘Tub’ chair, a model which did not enter into wider production during Hans J. Wegner’s lifetime. The chair seat is composed of two pieces of fabric-covered moulded plywood. It rests on a dramatically angled oak base and is supported by a brass mechanism that allows for adjustment of the back angle. Its complexity prohibited fabrication in greater number, though it was included in the 1954 Cabinetmaker’s Guild exhibition in Copenhagen. The chair is a notable example of Wegner’s explorations into the possibilities of plywood, but ultimately the demands of employing both laminate and solid wood construction concurrently were too great and he chose to focus on the latter.
The design of the ‘Tub’ chair shares the intuitive elegance of Wegner’s other furniture, and references certain features of his most well-known chair designs specifically. While structurally more elaborate, the clamshell-form seat relates to the ‘Peacock’ chair (1947) and the forceful forward movement of the base to the ‘Folding’ chair (1949). The ‘Tub’ most closely anticipates Wegner’s ‘Shell’ chair of 1963. It is notable that even a decade after the introduction of the ‘Tub’, the ‘Shell’ form was still considered too radical for its time. It was following the ‘Shell’ chair designs that Wegner closed the chapter on his experiments with plywood. However by 1989 it was picked for the cover of the catalogue for the exhibition celebrating Wegner’s 77th birthday and has since become one of his most iconic masterpieces. The present chair is consequently a rare illustration of some of his earliest career-defining ideas.
Black CH 29 or Sawbuck Chair by Hans J. Wegner
CH 29 or Sawbuck Chair by Hans Wegner dates from 1953 and is still produced by Carl Hansen and Son. Photo taken in their Copenhagen show room.
CH468 Oculus Chair by Hans J. Wegner
Hans Wegner designed the Oculus Chair in the sixties. Only few were made in the sixties for special occasions. In regular production by Carl Hansen and Son since 2010.