finn juhl catalog

5/25/2018 Finn Juhl Catalog

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FINN JUHL

FINE FURNITURE


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FINN JUHL , 1912 1989

A DANISH, INTERNATIONAL

MODERNIST

According to his worst critics, Finn Juhl saw li fe as a cocktail

party. He was born into a well-off middle class family and was in

many ways larger than life a man of the world, who pr ovoked

the traditional Danish furniture designers.

As a young man, he dreamed of b ecoming an art historian.

His thorough understanding of the international art scene

of his time as well as old er art history was central to his work.

He became one of the greatest furniture artists of the

20th century. He always stressed that he was self-taughtas a furniture designer, as he had trained as an architect

a study he never had time to finish. He only designed a

couple of holiday homes and one villa as an architect, but

their layout was radically modern.

His own home from 1942 is one of the first Danish

villas to be designed from the inside out, the functionality

of the rooms determine the external design and one

of the first houses where the rooms flow seamlessly from

one to the next. Nonetheless it is the interior design, the

furniture and his holistic attitude to interior design, which

Juhl has b ecom e fam ous f or.

Although some of his Danish colleagues saw him as a

weather vane, who blindly followed the winds of fashion, his

furniture, as well as his houses, were based on deep analyses of

the functionality of each component. His sofas, for instance,

are shaped to provide excellent suppo rt when one sits and

looks straight ahead, but also if two people are turned

to each other in conversation.

Juhl started his care er as a furniture designer i n the 1930s when,contrary to his joiner-trained peers, he designed heavy, plush

furniture. In the beginning, his furniture was a strong contrast to

the trendsetting furniture professor Kaare Klint and his students

rational, traditional and geometric designs. Juhl didnt believe

in blindly passing on tradition, but let himself be inspired by


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the modern art of his time. Not only did his furniture look like

sculptures by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Jean Arp and Erik

Thommesen they were often also exhibited together with these

artworks. Also his interior designs were inspired by the sculptors

contemplations on free and static movement. His early furniture

sculptures were shaped like big mammals. Juhl saw himself as a

modernist and thus succumbed to modernisms demand of honest

constructions, reflecting the form in their function.

Upholstered furniture as such had been heavily criticized since

the breakthrough of modernism in the 1920s because it hid its

construction. In the first decades of the 20th century Central

European modernists like Gerrit Rietveld and Marcel Breuer

completely denounced upholstery while favouring bare, geometric

constructions which looked like scaffolding or sitting machines.

Although Juhl aligned himself along early modernism,

he actually only ever designed o ne chair without upholstery.

During the 1940s Juhl acknowledged that the volumi nous

upholstered furniture didnt fit i nto the small flats of the

time. Simultaneously he s ought to lay bare the construction

principle of furniture. He discovered, that what makes a chair

comfortable is not necessarily the thickness of the upholstery

but more importantly that the upholstered surfaces give

support in the right places.

Like other modernistic pioneers, Juhl started from scratch

without role models. He d esigned by analysing how the

individual components of the chair shoul d carry the human

body. But contrary to his modernist contemporarie s, with their

strictly stream-lined, open, scaffolding structures, Juhl thought

that furniture should have what he called animalistic pl easing

character like Egyptian furniture design. Juhl translated

the bare construction into organic form like in his 44 chair,

also called the Bone Chair. The potential strength of the

material was utilised to the maximum just l ike in natures own

constructions, which have most volume where necessary.

The geometric, industrial-aesthetic modernism in steel

and straight lines, Juhl translated into daring, supple joinery

which put enormous demands on the joiners who where

to produce the design. Each element of the design flowed

seamlessly into each other. Like other early modernists, Juhl

took pride in making both the structurally supportive

elements of the furniture and the seated person look as

though they are floating. In some of his chairs, the backrest

and the seat are almost invisibly joined, as if they were

clouds floating through the room. As modernism prescribes,

Juhl use d the corb el m etho d, w here sur faces cove r the

carrying element. He became known for his special ability

to separate the carried and the carrying elements.

In one of his main pieces the Chieftain Chair from 1949, the

armrest and seat were cut free so the organic, d elicately

upholstered surfaces seemed to float. The chair, which

had elements reminiscent of aboriginal tools, became a turning

point for Juhl. Spearheaded by Juhl and Hans J. Wegners

furniture from the same year, 1949 marked the break

through for Danish design in the USA.

Juhl r epre sented one en d of the scale in the D anish

post-war version of modernism: Danish Design. In terms

of shape and form he was the most daring , bordering on

almost surreal organic modernism. Danish furniture design

had a strong break through internationally at a time when

almost all other countries had abandoned the craftsm anship

tradition and embraced industrial mass production.

Most of the Danish chairs were inspired by historic prototypes,

and so were Juhls to some extent. The Chieftain Chair, for

instance, was inspired by the backrest construction of Egyptian

chairs. But the thing that set Juhls designs apart was an extremely

sophisticated craftsmanship which didnt look like anything a

machine could produce a completely bio-morph creation, which

made a chair appear like a living sculpture in the room.

Finn Juhls artistic furniture designs hit solar plexus,

particularly in the USA where the post-war period was

characterized by a search back to the sensor y qualities of

craftsmanship and towards more human, organic shapes. Juhls

furniture was also produced in alternative wood materials:cedar, maple, nut and Brazilian rosewood. However, it was Juhls

use of teak, which became a turning point. Before Juhl, teak

was primarily used for outdoor furniture, but with Juhl as its

standard-bearer, the warmth of teak moved into the living rooms

and became synonymous with new optimism and freedom.


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The American avant-garde easily understood Juhls

dionysian, dynamic lines. It was after all the Americans who

had introduced the streamlined design of the 1930s. Bu t

Juhl s tayed wi thin the ideal of Euro pean m odern isms i deali stic

principles of honest, transparent constructions. His supple

shapes were anything but stylised and decorative.

In the post-war period, European modernism l ived on

among the American art elite, which Juhl became part of

through his friendship with Edgar Kaufmann Jr, the then

Director of the Industrial Design depar tment of the

Museum of Modern Ar t in New York. Not only were Juhls

own designs an important exponent of Danish Design abroad,

he also designed important travelling exhibitions on Danish

design in the USA. Juhl also completed several prestigious

interior design projects abroad, most notably the TrusteeshipCouncil Chamber at the United Nations building in New York.

Similar to his daring choice of material and shape, his use

of colour was revolutionary. Like the early international

modernists, he wasnt afraid of making a senso ry impact also

in this area he was different from his Danish contemporar ies

known for their discreet, almost ascetic attitude to colour.

Textile or painted surfaces in Juhls desi gns created a contrast

to the natural wood. Furniture, as well as interiors , was

strongly expressive in the choice of colour.

Juhl s fu rnit ure s peak s lo udl y and prom pts a dora tion

because it possesses an incredible lightness and sculptural

elegance beyond its own time. Juhl was the main exponent

of the organic variety of international modernism.

He was a Danish designer, who communicated the sensory

qualities of wood and his love of finding inspiration in

nature and history to the rest of the world. Contrary to

most Danish design, his furniture is not pragmatic and

sensible but saturated with a grand and exclusive zest for life.

It speaks of an originality, individualism and freedom, whichmost of the world can appreciate today.

Christian Holmsted Olesen

Curator, Designmuseum Danmark


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109 CHAIR

1946


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POET SOFA

1941


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57 SOFA

1957


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JA PA N CH AI R

1953


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46 CHAIR

1946 / 1953


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46 SOFA

1946


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44 CHAIR

1944


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CHIEFTAIN CHAIR

1949


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KAUFMANN TABL

1945


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BAKER SOFA

1951


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45 CHAIR

1945


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500 TABLE

1958


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TRAY TABLE

1965


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PELICAN CHAIR

1940


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108 CHAIR

1946


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COCKTAIL TABLE

1951


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NYHAVN TABLE

1945


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ROSS TABLE

1948

EYE TABLE

1948


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Onecollection A/S

Vesterled 19

DK-6950 Ringkbing

Phone +45 702 771 01

Fax +45 702 771 02

[email protected]

www.onecollection.com

Showroom Copenhagen

Nordre Toldbod 25

DK-1259 Kbenhavn K

Showroom Ringkbing

stergade 11

DK-6950 Ringkbing Design:

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Ph

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dreas

We

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togra

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Loca

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seum,

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