Standard-bearer for Danish Modernism
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Arne Jacobsen formed the vanguard of the spread of Modernism in Denmark. Today, he holds a prominent position in international design history, and during his own life, he influenced Danish furniture design from the late 1920s to the mid-1960s. His talent is wide-ranging – from industrial design over furniture art to the design of complex buildings such as The National Bank of Denmark, the Bella Vista Estate and the SAS Hotel in Copenhagen. Arne Jacobsen was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' School of Architecture in Copenhagen. He differed in many ways from his contemporary furniture designers – not least because he was not very focused on wood as a material but rather on moulded materials, as can be seen in his most iconic classics such as the Egg Chair, the Swan Chair and the series of functionalist stacking chairs including the Ant Chair and the Series Seven Chairs. These industrially manufactured furniture designs helped secure Arne Jacobsen an international reputation. His fame increased further after a photo of the notorious British model Christine Keeler sitting in her birthday suit on a chair similar to the Series Seven was widely publicized during the early 1960s. The Series Seven not only became the best-selling stacking chair – it later became one of the most copied chairs in the world. |
