Borge Mogensen Wingback Chair

Børge Mogensen was born in Aalborg, Denmark. He started as a cabinetmaker in 1934, and studied furniture design at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen from 1936–38. From 1938-43 he worked at various design studios in Copenhagen, including with Kaare Klint. In 1959 he left FDB’s furniture design studio to found his own design studio. His work has been featured in one-man exhibitions in Zurich, London, New York, Stockholm, Paris and Copenhagen. His furniture, strongly representative of his training as a traditional craftsman, was greatly appreciated by a public who had not yet become interested in modernism and the changes its influence had created on furniture and the decorative arts. He designed a sofa in 1945 with leather ties which allowed the sides to be dropped down. A 1949 chair, claimed by critics to be “a model for future chairs,” used a curved, slightly sloping backrest, cut out along the spine in an organic dewdrop shape. He designed a set of simple, sturdy and modest furniture for a seaside cottage in 1959, a very traditional oak table and chair set in 1960 and a set in pine to furnish a “husband’s study” in 1962.