Finn Juhl

Denmark　1912 - 1989

Born in 1912 in Frederiksberg, Denmark, Finn Juhl studied Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and upon graduation worked at the architectural firm of Vilhelm Lauritzen. He had designed numerous classic chairs, including the 1940 “Pelican Chair”, the 1945 “No. 45”, and the 1948 “Chieftain Chair”, which have all earned Juhl a spot in the Modernist Hall of Fame.


In the 1950s and 1960s, Finn Juhl worked to organize exhibitions across the globe to bring Nordic design onto the international platform. A few examples include The Arts of Denmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Two Centuries of Danish Design exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Milan Triennial as well as other international exhibitions. He organized more than 60 exhibitions in total across Denmark, the US, Italy, Germany, Britain, Australia and numerous other countries and truly propelled the reputation of Nordic design, so is fondly referred as the “Father of Danish Modern Design” today. In 1978, he was awarded the Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, and in 1984 awarded the Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog. In May 1989, Finn Juhl passed away, and his second wife handed over some of his 2,000 sketches to the Danish Design Museum, and set up the Finn Juhl Prize to reward outstanding contributors in architecture and furniture design.