Larsen & Bender Madsen

Background

Ejner Larsen (1917-1987) and Aksel Bender Madsen (1916-2000) were Danish furniture designers. Carl Hansen & Søn writes that they trained as a furniture upholsterer and a cabinetmaker respectively and met as students of Kaare Klint, in the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts; English Wikipedia adds that Larsen was born in Copenhagen and Bender Madsen in Ringe on Funen, and that they set up a design studio together in 1947.

Signature Style

The manufacturer calls their work simple and timeless and says they designed around 300 pieces: lounge sets, bedroom suites, bookshelves, dining tables and office furniture as well as chairs. Bender Madsen is quoted by Wikipedia as saying that their work followed the principles they learnt from Kaare Klint about what is functional and what is natural.

Notable Works

• The Metropolitan Chair, which the manufacturer calls their favourite piece and which Carl Hansen & Søn produces as the LM92P
• Furniture made over some 25 years with the cabinetmaker Willy Beck, according to Wikipedia

Legacy

Their furniture was shown at La Triennale in Milan, in the exhibitions 'Design in Scandinavia' and 'The Arts of Denmark' in the USA and at the Gewerbemuseum in Bern, and was bought by museums including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Boston and several museums in Japan. They received the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild annual prizes in 1956 and 1961.