Good resource
Web link below is a great resource for Danish furniture history. I did a search for Moller, nothing came up. Bad recollection, they were manufacturers right?
http://kunstindustrimuseet.dk/en
J L Moller
are the manufacturers
Neils Moller was the founder of the company, according to their website.
http://www.jlm.dk/start.asp?language=UK
Thank you for the input but...
Thank you for the input but I suppose I'm really looking for reference of furniture produced by Moller other than chairs. There seems to be endless examples of the chairs, but very little on the tables and sideboards and other items possibly produced by Moller. I don't understand why a maker and designer of that quality is only recognised for the chairs and not other items. To be honest I for one am getting a bit bored of looking at the chairs. What else is out there ?
Under the "History" menu for...
Under the "History" menu for paeredansk.co.uk you can look through old 1950's and 1960's Møller catalogs, which include case goods and tables.
http://www.paeredansk.co.uk/content.cfm?cID=30
Yes, that is pretty...
Yes, that is pretty surprising to see in the 50's catalog. The Paere Dansk' website still cites the 71 as "Neils Møller". Strange. The Danish furniture index also cites it as a Neils Møller design, as does just about everyone else. I wonder who is right.
http://www.paeredansk.co.uk/Details.cfm?ProdID=4612
Even the J.L. Møller website ...
Even the J.L. Møller website cites the 71 chair as being a Neils Møller design though, which is kind of peculiar.
http://www.jlm.dk/
The 1950?s catalog (which app...
The 1950?s catalog (which appears to date from the mid-50?s) certainly makes a point of citing A. Hovmand Olsen as being the designer of the #71 chair and its #55 armchair equivalent. Kind of hard to believe it is just an error, especially since the Mogens Kold Hovmand Olsen chair is so similar, and makes a similar use of bent plywood for the chair back. Could it be that A. Hovmand Olsen was an employee of the N.O. Moller design firm, and as such his design for the #71 was subsequently attributed to N.O. Moller because it was Moller?s firm that produced it? Hard to find any biographical information on Olsen.
Sorry to revisit, but
while it still baffles me that an attribution could get so messed up, it certainly seems like H. Moon has a point regarding the attribution of the J.L. Møller #71 and #55 chair to Arne Hovmand Olsen, insofar as the old 1950?s J.L. Møller catalog cites him as the designer of the chair. While the similar chair that Arne Hovmand Olsen designed for Mogens Kold is a very nice chair, I have to suspect that many people have long regarded it as being a bit too derivative of the #71 chair -- which is always cited as a Niels Møller design. But if Hovmand Olsen did design both chairs, then that whole perception is inaccurate.
I know some people have even stated on this forum that they find Møller side chairs to be boring in general, perhaps as a result of their being encountered so often. But I do feel that the relatively early 1951 design date of the #71 chair, and its minimalist construction cause it to be a pretty influential design. If Hovmand Olsen did design the chair, I think it is a rather sad thing if he is not generally acknowledged for it, and that if it could be established that he was in fact the designer of the chair, it would be nice if he could get the credit for that.
Given the citation in the catalog, along with the similarity of the #71 chair to the Mogens Kold chair by Hovmand Olsen, there would seem to be a lot of evidence pointing to Hovmand Olsen as the designer of the #71 chair as well. But I am not sure at what point one can flatly state that Hovmand Olsen designed the chair, when there is also so many other citations, even in J.L. Møller's own literature, pointing to Neils Møller as the designer. It would be great if someone with a connection to the company could clarify this. I have emailed J.L. Møller and Paere Dansk about it, but did not get a response.
In 1962, the Anton Dam catalog shows Møller models 55 & 71 as designed by Hovmand Olsen and N.O. Møller. Also, note that you can see that in 1962, the model 55 was the earlier version with the much more sculpted arm rests. In the photo with the table you can very clearly see the shading. So, we can see that the N.O. Møller credit did not start appearing when the chair was re-designed in the early 70s. It started transitioning from Hovmand Olsen to Møller in 1962.
More evidence than Hovmand Olsen designed the chairs.
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