Furniture Designers - Poul Kjaerholm By Jessica Whittaker At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Poul Kjaerholm was one of the most well known Danish furniture designers who died at the young age of 51. But from the time he graduated from the School of Arts and Crafts in 1952 to the day he passed away, Poul Kjaerholm designed some of the most well known furniture to come out of Denmark. Many of his chairs were prototyped but never put into production which allows collectors of fine furniture to hold onto the hope that the prototypes will eventually be produced by Kjaerholm Productions, the company Kjaerholm’s own son started in 2004 in an effort to continue producing his father’s work.

Poul Kjaerholm was trained as cabinet maker, but wood was not the only thing he enjoyed working with. During his studies at the School of Arts and Crafts he preferred working with metal with his final project being a lounge chair with metal sides fitted in slotted chromed spring steel. Not one to compromise his designs, everything he designed was simple and truthful, using the natural properties of the material he worked with and making sure even the smallest of detail was exclusive. He found it just as easy to work with steel as he did any other material.

Poul Kjaerholm liked the way steel aged, feeling that when it was polished the right way and the surface was treated properly it looked as beautiful as organic material furniture. Its strength and springing ability appealed to him and he made it a point to work the steel so that light reflected in its surfaces and made the entire piece look artistic. Everything Poul Kjaerholm designed, he designed for open rooms that were well-lit, large, and free plainly designed with his furniture giving the room visual harmony and elegance all at the same time.

Poul Kjaerholm believed that the owners of the furniture could give his styles and pieces color, variation, drama, and movement. For example, a simple vase of colorful flowers added warmth to a steel and glass side table or a colorful pillow placed in the corners of a black upholstered steel leg couch. His furniture is considered in the design world ‘ascetic through the naked perfection and simplicity’. His production line still to this day is small but the purity of his ideas still hold true.

Kjaerholm and Ejvind Kold Christensen partnered in 1955 and Christensen primarily produced Kjaerholm’s designs up until Kjaerholm’s death in 1980. Two years after his death, Christensen allowed Fritz Hansen, another one of the Danish furniture designers, to take over the production and subsequent sales of what became known as the ‘Kjaerholm Collection’. Ejvind Kold Christensen did not want to see Kjaerholm’s work simply disappear and fade into obscurity, especially after a collaboration that spanned close to thirty years between the two men.

Today Fritz Hansen is still producing the small collection of furniture that Kjaerholm left the world before his passing in 1980. His designs are also part of the permanent collection in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, NY, USA, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, and in collections in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and his native Denmark. Any interested in seeing Kjaerholm’s entire collection should pick up the recently published book, The Furniture of Poul Kjaerholm: Catalogue Raisonné, by Michael Sheridan.

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