Modern Furniture

Designer Verner Panton tried to curb his exuberant personality enough to work for someone else after graduating from the Royal Danish Academy of Art in 1951, but his love of color and outrageous forms just wouldn't let him. So he set out to look for inspiration and to make his own name in the design industry by traveling through Europe in his Volkswagen van-turned-art-studio. His odyssey resulted in a string of unique interior, furniture and textile designs that cemented his place in the design industry. These include his Panton Chair, which was considered so revolutionary at the time it debuted; it has since been immortalized in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also created the Cone Chair, which was so popular that police actually ordered it to be removed from a shop window in New York where large crowds had gathered to see it.

Panton's designs were in direct opposition to the handcrafted wood furniture coming out of the Danish Modern movement in full swing at the time. Ever pushing the envelope, Panton not only indulged in color; he went wild with circles, squares and other basic shapes, turning them into iconic rugs and textiles that embodied the Op Art era. These designs have become so ubiquitous; you might not be aware they were designed by Panton, but you can't miss how well each captures the spirit of a unique moment in time.

Panton also created innovative and controversial interiors, such as those for the Hotel Astoria in Trondheim, Norway, where he covered the floors, walls and ceilings entirely with wildly colored textiles. But the Astoria interiors were tame compared to Panton's even more extreme "total environments."

These included the surreal Visiona II exhibition at the 1970 Cologne Furniture Fair, which featured odd shapes vaguely resembling furniture that erupted from the floor and were upholstered with one seemingly continuous length of red carpetIn spite of winning numerous awards, Panton's influence waned in the 1970s. But his designs became unexpectedly hot again in 1995 when Kate Moss was featured naked on a Panton Chair on a British Vogue cover. This renewed worldwide interest in him caused the Trapholdt museum in Denmark to commission him to create a retrospective of his work, titled Verner Panton: Light and Colour. Unfortunately, the exhibit had to open without him. Panton passed away from a heart attack 12 days before its opening on September 17, 1998.