Scandinavian Design   26 April 2018

The first thing you see as you enter the hall is a number of single pieces of furniture which reveal the current standard of the guild's cabinetmakers. A desk with a chair upholstered in leather has been placed in the middle of the room. It was designed by Architect Tyge Hvass and made by Jacob Kjaer. It must be expensive, but here is a piece of furniture which will always be considered a treat, no matter which direction our tastes may take. It cannot be done more beautifully…

Hakon Stephensen, Politiken

Photo reproduced from Dansk Møbelkunst Gennem 40 Aar: 1937-1946 by Grete Jalk, pg. 91

This desk chair was designed by Tyge Hvass and included in the cabinetmaker Jacob Kjær's booth at Danish Cabinetmaker's Guild exhibition of 1939. According to Aage Schultz for Berlingske Tidende, Hvass, the designer of the exhibition, designed the chair and desk for the "garden parlour" of his own, at the time, incomplete country home.

Tyge Hvass 1885–1963

Functionalist architect Tyge Hvass was born in Copenhagen in 1885. In his early years, he worked as a bricklayer later studying at a technical college and graduating with a degree in architecture. Throughout his career, he designed several private homes and apartment buildings as well as commissions to build the J.F. Willumsens Museums in Frederikssund, Denmark, and the Danish church and House of Denmark in Paris.

Hvass was a contributor to the Danish Pavilions at multiple World’s Fair Exhibitions including the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, and the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, among others. A notable figure in the history of Danish furniture design, he was one of the architects responsible for the Copenhagen Cabinetmaker’s Guild Exhibitions. Tyge Hvass died in 1963.

Auction Results Tyge Hvass

TYGE HVASS, armchair | wright20.com

Tyge Hvass

armchair
estimate: $3,000–5,000
result: $10,000

TYGE HVASS, chair | wright20.com

Tyge Hvass

chair
estimate: $2,000–3,000
result: $2,000