841/​1344

Flemming Lassen (b. 1902, d. 1984)

“The Tired Man”. Easy chair upholstered with sheepskin, partly fitted with buttons. Mounted on stained beech legs, front legs with small wheels with brass fittings. Designed 1935–1936. Made late 1930s by cabinetmaker A. J. Iversen.

The chair was first designed in sketch in 1935 for the furniture competition held in connection with the annual Copenhagen Cabinetmaker's Guild exhibition. This as part of “living room in a bachelors appartment”. It was later modified to the example actually shown at the exhibition the following year 1936. It was then made either with runner legs or with legs as the present example. Flemming Lassen articulated his aim with the chair as that one should sit “as warm and secure as a polar bear cub in its mothers arms in the middle of the inland ice”. The chair has been interpreted as a fine contemporary and typical Danish comment to a more austere international modernism prevailing in Central Europe in the thirties.

Literature: Grete Jalk [ed.] 1987: “40 Years of Dnaish Furniture Design”, vol. 1, ill. pp. 246–247. Literature: Arne Karlsen 1990: “Dansk Møbelkunst i det 20. Århundrede”, vol. 1, ill. pp. 144–145. Literature: Povl Christiansen, Hakon Stephensen, 1966: “40- Håndværket viser vejen”, ill. pp. 46–47.

Auction

Nordic design, 13 June 2013

Category
Estimate

300,000–500,000 DKK

Sold

Price realised

525,000 DKK