Jacob Kjær

Jacob Kjær was one of the finest Danish cabinetmakers of the twentieth century, and a master of the craft on which the international renown of Danish furniture was built. Drawing on the refinement of classical English furniture and interpreting it in a spare, modern idiom, he created pieces of rare elegance and flawless execution in the noblest materials. As a leading figure of the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild, he also did much to carry Danish craftsmanship to the world, and his celebrated FN chair, designed for the United Nations in New York, remains a quiet emblem of post-war Danish design.

Jacob Kjær was born in 1896 and learned his trade in the workshop of his father, himself a furniture maker. He went on to complete his training abroad, studying in Berlin at the school of the Kunstgewerbemuseum and working as a joiner in Paris, experiences that broadened his horizons well beyond the Danish tradition. On his return to Copenhagen he founded his own workshop, Jacob Kjær Møbelhaandværk, and in 1929 he exhibited his work at the Barcelona International Exposition.

Kjær's furniture is characterised by simplicity and by the use of the finest materials, which, unusually for his day, he worked himself. Inspired by classical English furniture, his clean, graceful designs are nonetheless thoroughly modern in their interpretation. He favoured Cuban mahogany, teak, rosewood and walnut, often paired with Niger leather and discreet brass details, and his chairs, with their gracefully sloping backs and arms, anticipate the work of a younger generation of Danish designers. Among his most accomplished pieces is a model of dining chair with a geometric spindled back in Cuban mahogany, created for the Paris Exposition internationale of 1937.

Above all, Kjær valued fine materials and craftsmanship, and he believed in the highest standards. He served as president of the Arts and Crafts Committee for Exports from 1944, and from 1952 until his death as chairman of the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild, whose annual furniture exhibitions were the great showcase of Danish design. Through these roles he did much to enhance the international reputation of the Danish furniture industry.

His best-known work is the FN chair of 1949, designed for the United Nations headquarters in New York, a spare and sculptural armchair in wood and leather. First made in his own workshop, it was later produced by Christensen & Larsen. Jacob Kjær died in 1957, leaving a body of work that embodies, perhaps more purely than any other, the alliance of classical refinement and modern clarity at the heart of Danish furniture.