1960s Grete Jalke Sofas With Oak Legs and Blue Wool Upholstery

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About the Item

Four Available: 1960s Grete Jalke Freestanding Sofas With Stained Oak Legs and Blue Wool Upholstery and made by Johannes Hansen. Require reupholstery. Wool with stains, wear and defects.Creator: Johannes Hansen (Cabinetmaker),Grete Jalk (Designer)Dimensions: Height: 27.17 in (69 cm)Width: 64.97 in (165 cm)Depth: 27.56 in (70 cm)Seat Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Style: Scandinavian Modern (Of the Period)Materials and Techniques: Fabric,OakPlace of Origin: DenmarkPeriod: 1960-1969Date of Manufacture: 1960Condition: FairWear consistent with age and use. Sofas are sold as is. We are able to offer a bespoke quote for reupholstery in material of your choosing. A cream or ivory wool boucle would suit these well.Seller Location: London, GBReference Number: 1stDibs: LU6366243217132Shop All Grete Jalk

Grete Jalk

What would the reputation of mid-century Danish furniture be without legendary female designer Grete Jalk? A pioneer of Scandinavian modernism, Jalk sought to craft furniture that was both cost-efficient and high in quality, each piece made for the evolving interiors and design sensibilities of the day. She continues to be celebrated for her sleek and minimal armchairs, lounge chairs, coffee tables and more.

Jalk was born in 1920 in Copenhagen. She studied at the Drawing and Applied Art School for Women before enrolling at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where famed designer Kaare Klint was among her instructors. Jalk completed her studies in 1946 and began a cabinetmaker apprenticeship. That same year, she won an award at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers Guild competition. Jalk also participated in the 1951 Milan Triennial exhibition, where her designs earned more acclaim and attention.

In 1954, Jalk opened her own design studio and began working with major Danish furniture manufacturers like Fritz Hansen and Glostrup Mbelfabrik. She found inspiration in plywood experiments carried out by Alvar Aalto and Ray and Charles Eames, and she quickly became known for her pared-back, expressive designs, which touted fluid forms and were made of alluring woods such as teak and rosewood.

Jalks best-known work is the 1963 GJ chair, a collaboration with cabinetmaker Poul Jeppesen that won first place in the Daily Mail International Furniture Competition. Made of two pieces of molded teak plywood, the sculptural GJ lounge chair is part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

While creating her iconic furniture designs, Jalk wore many other hats. She taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and served as an editor of the Danish design magazine Mobilia from 195662 and 196874. In 1974, Jalk curated a traveling design exhibition for the Danish Foreign Ministry and was named a member of the Danish Design Council in 1981. She was also the editor of 40 Years of Danish Furniture Design: The Copenhagen Cabinet-makers’ Guild Exhibitions 19271966, published in 1987.

Jalk passed away in 2006 at the age of 86. In 2008, Danish furniture manufacturer Lange Production was granted exclusive rights to reproduce the GJ chair, a design as fresh and original today as ever.

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Shop All Johannes Hansen

Johannes Hansen

Danish master cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen is best known for a celebrated partnership with legendary Scandinavian modernist designer Hans Wegner that lasted half a century. The sophisticated and sculptural chairs, tables and cabinets that Wegner designed and Hansen built earned Wegner worldwide acclaim, and brought meaningful business opportunities to Hansen and his modest workshop.

Hansen was born in 1886 and apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in his early years, opening a workshop and showroom in Copenhagen. In 1927, he helped establish the annual Copenhagen Cabinetmakers Guild Exhibition. Later, at the age of 55, Hansen began working with Danish furniture designer Hans J. Wegner, then only 26. With Wegner creating and Hansen executing on his partners complex designs, they developed furniture to sell in Hansen’s showroom. A business relationship of this type was common in 20th-century Danish furniture making, and Hansen and Wegner enjoyed a prolific and renowned collaboration.

Wegners career began in cabinetry before he transitioned to furniture design in the 1940s. He is among the most celebrated figures for collectors of mid-century modern and Scandinavian works of the era. One of the first well-known entries for the Cabinetmakers Guild Exhibitions authored by Wegner and built by Hansen was the 1942 Lattice chair, a red Cuban mahogany dining room chair with an upholstered leather seat. The Peacock chair, an iconic design that followed in 1947, was the pair’s take on a traditional English Windsor chair. It featured flattened spindles along the back resembling the feathers of a peacock tail it wasnt exactly an emblem of the pared-back functionality prioritized by Kaare Klint, Wegners former instructor at Copenhagens Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Wegner would go on to design nearly 500 chairs over the course of his life among them are the Wishbone chair, the Papa Bear chair and the Round chair. The latter, which is often simply called The Chair, was manufactured by Hansen and made its debut at the Guild Exhibition in 1949. It was declared the most beautiful chair in the world by Interiors magazine a year later, and a pair of the iconic seats appeared on the first nationally televised presidential debate in the United States in 1960.

After Hansen died in 1961, his son, Poul Hansen, took over the business and continued working with Wegner. The company closed in the 1990s, but today, Hansen and Wegner’s collaborative legacy endures in collections around the world.

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