ArtistDanish
Mogens Hansen
0 active items
Mogens Hansen was born on January 31, 1936, in Vejen, a small town in southern Jutland with a furniture-making tradition. He trained as an upholsterer at Vejen Møbelfabrik, absorbing the craft fundamentals that would define his later work. In 1961, he left employment to start his own workshop in Aarhus, operating initially from a small premises on Rosenvangsalle. The space quickly proved too cramped, and the following year he purchased the disused farm property called Kærgarden at Søvangsvej 3 in Solbjerg, a village outside Aarhus, for 90,000 Danish kroner. The company began making furniture there under genuinely modest conditions: the office sat above the old manure pit, production ran in the horse stables, and finished goods were stored in the barn.
From those improvised beginnings, Mogens Hansen built a company grounded in a single principle: furniture made entirely to order for individual customers, never from stock. Each piece was constructed in Denmark, upholstered by hand, and offered with a 25-year warranty - an unusually long guarantee that reflected a genuine commitment to longevity over volume. The company positioned itself at a remove from mass-market Danish furniture, more aligned in spirit with the workshop tradition of Danish cabinetmaking than with the industrial furniture sector.
The design language of MH Møbler is clean, restrained, and built around comfort. The MH 195, put into production in 1973, became the company's most enduring design - a sofa with piped seams on the frame and cushions that gives the piece a tailored, architectural quality. It remains among the best-selling models today. Other models followed in subsequent decades, including lounge chairs, ear chairs, and modular seating, typically available in full-grain leather or woven fabric over solid wood frames in beech or oak.
Mogens Hansen ran the company until 2003, when he transferred the director's position to his son Michael Hansen. He died in April 2006 at the age of 70. The factory moved to larger facilities in Hasselager, near Aarhus, around 2010, and now operates from approximately 2,500 square metres of production and administration space. The company continues under the Mogens Hansen name, manufacturing furniture to order in Denmark.
On Auctionist, 14 items attributed to Mogens Hansen have appeared at auction, all now ended. The pieces span chairs, sofas, and sofa sets, with buyers concentrated at Swedish and Danish regional houses including Woxholt Auktioner, Halmstads Auktionskammare, and Palsgaard Kunstauktioner. The top recorded sale was 10,910 SEK for a MH 195 leather sofa. A model 213 armchair with footstool sold for 1,901 SEK, and a set of four teak dining chairs reached 1,068 SEK. The secondary market for MH Møbler pieces reflects the brand's mid-tier positioning - solid Danish craft that trades at practical prices rather than the collector premiums attached to Wegner or Mogensen.