Risom Chairs Restoration?  

Here you go . . .

While not the clearest labeling, I believe your chairs are specifically model #654U 1/2

This is from a 1950 Knoll catalog. Since Risom had already left and started his own company at that point, it appears that Knoll intentionally left his name off for design credit in this catalog. Other pieces in the catalog have design credit listed. This would be consistent with the story that Hans and Jens parted on not-the-best terms after Florence entered the scene.

These Risom chairs could be from the early 1940s when Knoll was just starting (possibly). There are many Knoll books out there that your local public library might have a copy for you too look at. The use of webbing is older which was an elegant solution during the time when most materials were reserved for the war efforts in the USA. Even though the use of webbing is not original to Knoll or Risom (Aalto and Mathsson used them before), Risom and Knoll used surplus rejected parachute straps for these chairs.

I can't remember the wood species but the very early ones were not birch or maple frames. If the fabric upholstery are original, you should save them for conservation. You can redo your chairs in the webbed version except the nail or staple holes will be there permanently and you cannot reverse the chair back in the original version.

Also, belated 100th birthday to Florence 'Shu' Knoll.

Thanks so much for the info! I also just recently picked up an original leather webbed armchair. @minimoma are you saying the leather webbed chairs are the oldest? I'm now torn on how to proceed with the restoration. The fabric is definitely original, the foam isn't hardened either, but it's clear compared to the catalog image that there has been significant shrinkage of the upholstery over the years. Maybe some others can chime in with their opinions on restoration / conservation. Thanks again.

The leather webbing was one of the option but the use of surplus cotton webbing was the big idea when the Risom chairs was introduced in 1941. There were later versions also with plastic webbing.

Knoll also offered the webbing in the chairs designed by Ralph Rapson and Abel Sorensen which came later around the mid 1940s.

I don't know if it is still accessible online, but the Knoll Museum used to show examples of the Knoll chairs. I just remember now that cedar was used as wood frames of the 1st generation Risom chairs.

If these are my chairs, I will probably leave the wood finish alone and just do some minor upholstery work to make it useable keeping the chairs as original as possible, but these are your chairs, you do what pleases you.

The law label can be used to start a window on the early side.

The label kind of gets in the way of converting them from upholstery, unless you are willing to lose the label entirely. You also may discover that there are a lot of rusty holes in the wood from the upholstery fasteners.

Upon closer inspection these definitely appear to be cedar. I'm not sure if the picture show, but the frames are really quite rough. The front stretchers need to be replaced, there's considerable moisture staining up the legs and every joint is loose. While I'm not sure if it will warrant a complete refinish, they will need a lot of reconditioning to what I would call "usable" condition. The original fabric nails are definitely rusting, and I suspect most of them will break when they're removed.

To be honest, I'm the type of person that gets bored and I usually end up replacing my furniture with a new pieces as a find them, so I'm also thinking about desirability if I were to ever sell the pair in the future. These seem a lot more rare than the typical strapped version or even the fully upholstered version, but there's hardly any recent sales info to fully grasp value / desirability. The other idea I've been toying with is restoring them as much as possible and having a really nice slip cover made to "convert" them to the fully upholstered version, basically covering the original upholstery.

Cedar? Are you sure about that? That's a pretty soft wood, at least the cedar species that I've dealt with in the past.

I've always thought most of the early blond wood for Risom was birch.

I'll have to look more closely at them and snap a few pictures of the frames.