HANS J. WEGNER (1914-2007)

Designed in 1949, and anointed the following year by Danish retailer and critic Osker Fitscher as ‘The Chair’, the model 501 endures as one of the most lasting and influential of Wegner’s designs. The international appeal of the design was secured when, in 1960, John F. Kennedy chose to be seated in an example during his televised, pre-election debate with Richard Nixon, thus confirming to an American audience the chair as an icon of Danish furniture design.