Poul Kjærholm – Controlled Luxury
In the 1950s, modern Danish furniture took the world by storm. With Poul Kjærholm (1929–80), we are putting the spotlight on one of the sharpest minds in Danish design history. Where most of his peers excelled in wood, the slightly younger Kjærholm opted for steel, flagline, leather, concrete and marble as his materials of choice. This did not make his furniture less popular and he remains one of the most sought-after designers and also enjoys broad international appeal.
“It’s not just the constructive possibilities of steel that interest me; the refraction of light in its surface is, for me, an essential element of the artistic work. I consider steel to be a material of the same artistic merit as wood and leather.”
Poul Kjærholm, 1963.
Kjærholm trained both as a cabinetmaker and an architect, giving him a unique feel for the combination of craftsmanship and aesthetics. His production is characterised by his deep love of the material and his endeavour to use it to its fullest. By virtue of his skills as a cabinetmaker, Kjærholm transformed the cold, industrial steel into beautiful pieces of craftsmanship. His genius lay in bending the steel as if it were a paper aeroplane, without the use of joints and welds. This transformation of steel into an almost organic material is characteristic of Kjærholm’s furniture, taking it to a level of its own in Danish furniture history.
Kjærholm’s minimalist and stringent mode of expression is strongly inspired by the visual artist Piet Mondrian and the Bauhaus architects Gerrit Rietveld and Mies van der Rohe. Kjærholm is therefore also regarded as one of the foremost Danish representatives of international modernism, who was at the same time deeply rooted in the Danish furniture tradition. Kjærholm ended his long career as a professor at the furniture school at Denmark’s School of Art and Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1976–80.
Highlights from Poul Kjærholm at the Auction
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