(First posted 3/5/2011)
Wegner worked for Arne Jacobsen for several years and then started his own company in 1943. Most of his chair designs were manufactured by PP Møbler and Carl Hansen & Søn. The Peacock chair, designed in 1947, was given its nickname by Finn Juhl. It has a slatted back rest that fans out to resemble a peacock tail, with flat sections of slats that look like the eyes of a peacock feather. This chair was inspired by the traditional Windsor chair.
Wegner's breakthrough and major sales success was the Round chair (1949), which is now simply called The Chair. It rose to prominence after being featured on the cover of the American magazine Interiors, which called it "the world's most beautiful chair." The Round chair was used during the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debates, giving it mass exposure. Other well-known Wegner designs are the Shell chair (1948), the Y-Chair (1949), the Cow Horn chair (1952), the Bear chair (1954), the Bull chair (1960) and the Three-Legged chair (1963).
In 1960 Wegner came out with several variations on the Ox chair which came with or without horns and showed a playful side of his designs. "We must take care," he said, "that everything doesn't get so dreadfully serious. We must play--but we must play seriously."
From architonic.com
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| Peacock chair 1stdibs.com |
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| The Chair 1stdibs.com |
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| Three-legged Shell chair 1stdibs.com |
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| CH24 Wishbone or Y chair scandinavia-design.fr |
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| Cowhorn chair moma.org |
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| Papa Bear chair mid2mod.com |
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| Bull chair liveauctioneers.com |
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| Ox chair midcenturia.com |
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| Wegner relaxing in an Ox chair dailyicon.net |
To watch a Wegner Peacock chair or The Chair being handcrafted, here are two videos that follow the process from beginning to end.
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