ArtistDanish
Poul M. Volther
1 active items
Poul M. Volther was born on 2 January 1923 and trained first as a cabinetmaker before studying furniture design at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts. His entry into professional design came through a recommendation from Hans Wegner, who helped him secure a position at FDB Møbler in 1949. At the time, FDB Møbler - the furniture arm of the Danish consumer cooperative movement - was under the artistic direction of Børge Mogensen, one of the key figures in defining what would become the international template for Danish modern furniture. When Mogensen departed in 1950, Volther succeeded him as head of the design studio, a position he held until 1955.
The FDB years shaped his design language. Working within the cooperative's mandate to produce well-made, affordable furniture for ordinary Danish households, Volther developed a functional vocabulary that prioritized durability, material honesty, and ergonomic clarity. The J46 dining chair from 1956, with its distinctive V-shaped back and slender oak construction, became one of the most commercially successful chairs in Danish history - over 850,000 units have been sold, and FDB Møbler continues to produce it today. The C35 expandable dining table from 1957 followed a similar logic: a generous tabletop, legs angled for stability, and extensions that could accommodate family gatherings without formal ceremony. Both pieces came to furnish large numbers of Danish homes built during the welfare state expansion of the postwar decades.
After leaving FDB, Volther pursued independent design work and took on a teaching role at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where he mentored successive generations of furniture designers. His practice in this period reflected a continuing interest in structural experiment alongside functionalist discipline. The Corona chair, first conceived in 1961 as a hand-carved oak prototype, brought these threads together in unexpected ways. Where his FDB work had prioritized straightforward production, Corona was architecturally ambitious: a chrome-plated spring-steel frame supporting a cascading arrangement of oval cushions that formed both seat and backrest in a single rising curve. The name came from a solar eclipse observed during a meeting between Volther and manufacturer Erik Jørgensen on the island of Funen. Jørgensen launched the production version under the model number EJ-5 in 1964, and it was awarded a gold medal at the Milan Triennale that year.
Corona's reception followed an unusual trajectory. Initial enthusiasm gave way to a quieter period, and the chair remained a specialist's reference rather than a market staple for several decades. The 1997 reintroduction by Erik Jørgensen at international design fairs changed that, generating a second wave of recognition that has continued to build. In 2002, the year after Volther's death on 23 January 2001, Corona chairs furnished the EU Summit in Copenhagen - an institutional endorsement that consolidated the chair's status in the broader design canon. The form's combination of sculptural presence and anatomical accommodation, often described in terms of the spine and ribs it visually echoes, has secured its place across fashion editorials, film sets, and major museum collections.
On Auctionist, 13 items by Volther appear in the database, handled primarily by Danish auction houses including Svendborg Auktionerne, Bruun Rasmussen (Lyngby and Aarhus), and Palsgaard Kunstauktioner, with Bukowskis Stockholm and Stockholms Auktionsverk representing the Swedish presence. The listings span his full range: multiple Corona EJ-5 chairs with and without matching ottomans, a set of J48 dining chairs, the C35A oak dining table, and a daybed 'Diva/981' produced by Gemla Fabriker in Sweden. Top recorded prices in the database reach 14,000 DKK for a Corona armchair with swivel base and stool, and 10,000 DKK for a fully leather-upholstered example, consistent with the active secondary market for the model.