The Rolls Royce of Chairs: How the Papa Bear Chair Rose to Fame

  "If only you could design just one good chair in your life… But you simply cannot."- Hans Wegner 

Hans Wegner was an exceptional furniture designer all his life, but between 1949 and 1951 he had an incredible run. Virtually everything he touched turned to gold. In the space of just 24 months, he designed a whole series of furniture pieces that are now icons in Danish Modern and Mid Century Modern Design. This made him an undisputed star of the design scene in Denmark and abroad. During this exceptional productive time period Hans Wenger designed icons including the Round Chair (1949), the Wishbone Chair (1949), the CH-25 (1949), the CH-22 (1950), JH512 Folding Chair (1949) and the Flag Halyard Chair (1950). Included in this list is one of the most glorious and sought after armchair designs of all Danish Modernism design, the Papa Bear (1950-51).

Architectural Structure Provides Great Comfort

The Papa Bear is a remarkable chair in every respect. Like most of Wegner's chairs, it's a sculpture. Made with ideal proportions, and modern lines and curves,  it looks light for a chair of its size and type. The Papa Bear Chair after all is Hans Wegner’s modern take on a classic English wingback chair (believed to have been created in England in the 1600s to help shield from drafts), with its tall back and side panels that extend from each arm.  The Papa bear chair is a  modern wingback chair, the ultimate in glorious comfort. 

Hans Wegner’s twist was to cut the armrests free from the seat for lightness and ease of movement. The arms were designed with a gap underneath for practical reasons. He wanted to create an armchair you could move your legs around and in: stick them through the sides and not just over the arms but under the arms as well. Hans Wegner understood that people can be restless when sitting. Wegner loved to move around when reading or listening to music. 

“ I like a chair to be so large that you can really see it and burrow yourself into it” - Hans Wegner. 

Another striking feature and rather hidden secret is held within the armrests. The Papa Bear’s rear legs are the same wooden beam that travels forward to become the cantilever armrests.  This construction makes the chair incredibly strong and almost impossible to destroy.

Above: Vintage picture showing the internal construction of a Papa bear chair by AP Stolen. At Hobbs Modern we have had the pleasure to  work one over 10 Papa bear chairs and we can attest to the chairs robust construction. We have never seen a loose joint on these chair, which is incredible since many of these chairs are 60 -75 years old and have been well loved. 

Originally its upholstery was made of thin natural wool, making it so comfortable that you can spend hours in it. The ideal reading chair on a cold Danish winter night, a chair that you can absolutely burrow into.  

The arms are topped with teak, oak, or rosewood wooden paws to rest your hands on. Hans Wegner knew that the arm rests would get the most wear so the wood “Paws" prevented the chair from excessive wear and soiling to the fabric. 

The Papa Bear was and remains one of the most exclusive designs of the Danish Modern period for several reason: 

•  The high cost of the chair is due to the intensive labor it takes to build the Papa Bear Chair. It takes up to two weeks for artisans in Denmark to build each chair by hand. The frame is made of solid beech, oak and teak (in very rare cases Brazilian rosewood).

• When new it would have cost about 3 times the average monthly salary. So it would have been a significant investment at the time.                                                                     

• The chair is complicated to upholstery. This chair is made with a combination of cotton, palm, tow, coil springs, and horse hair. These materials each have different properties which are essential in ensuring the Papa Bear’s shape and comfort much like a properly tailored suit. Unlike most other lounge chairs the only foam is in the seat’s cushion.  Metal springs were used for the back. They had to be sewn into linen bags and attached to jute straps. Finally, the fabric was secured and tightened with twelve buttons on the backrest. These buttons not only give the backrest a visual structure, but also pull through the frame ensuring the back springs maintain an ergonomic shape.

• Vintage examples of Papa Bear Chairs have and continue to significantly increased in value overtime. Many collectors see the Papa Bear Chair as alternative investments much like art that will continue to appreciate in value with time. 

• It's an incredibly comfortable chair. The Papa bear Chair will fit a wide variety of body types comfortably and thus it is extremely functional and versatile. The Papa Bear chair is perfect for a petit 5’ ft woman to a large 6’ 5” ft man. Unlike the Eames Lounge chair which is built for people of small statures. 
  

• Built to last the Papa Bear chair is an heirloom piece of furniture. Wegner always built his furniture to last using only the best materials and joinery. He believed each of his designs should be made to exacting standards. 

For these reasons many consider it to be the Rolls Royce of chairs.

From Wood to Upholstery via Plasticine

Hans Wegner, who had hardly ever designed upholstered furniture before, set to work with his usual precision. He molded a miniature version of the Papa Bear in plasticine. By the time he was finished, he had thought through every aspect of the chair down to the last detail and the chair meet with immediate commercial success an Icon was born. 

Interestingly Wegner began developing the chair in 1950-1951 out of necessity. His business partner Eivind Kold Christensen was in the process of setting up a sales organization for him, later known as Salesco, and signed contracts with no less than five companies, all of which were to produce different Wegner designs.

The upholstery was to be produced by the young company A. P. Stolen. (The frame by PP mobler) . It had only been founded a year earlier and as such had little experience. For Wegner, whose quality standards were already legendary, this could have been a stumbling block. But the owner, Anker Petersen, was an accomplished upholsterer in his own right. He had run a furniture shop in Copenhagen for a number of years and had built up an excellent reputation. It was therefore agreed that A.P. Stolen would be chosen as Wegner's manufacturer and would concentrate primarily on the production of upholstered models. But to do this, Petersen needed designs - and he needed them fast. Hans Wegner fuulfllled the demand with a line of upholstered chairs by AP stolen: Papa Bear chair, Mama bear Chair, and Ox Chair. 

The Papa Bear - a name given to the chair by a journalist - quickly became a trademark and a bestseller for AP Stolen and Wegner. Master cabinetmaker Ejnar Pedersen, whose company PP Møbler supplied the frames from 1953, writes in his memoirs that PP had to deliver several hundred pieces per quarter to AP Stolen's workshop in the 1950s. It was not until the 1970s that interest in the Papa Bear chair waned - which eventually led to the closure of A.P. Stolen in 1977.

Since 2003, the Papa Bear has been manufactured entirely by PP Møbler in Allerød. The production method is still exactly the same as that specified by Wegner. To this day, foam is only used in the seat cushion.

Click here to browse our Vintage Collection - a curated selection of rare original designs from the Scandinavian Modern era, spanning 1930 - 1969. 

Authenticity - 

Many early Papa Bear Chairs are unmarked. The lack of a Danish Furnituremakers’ Control means the chair is pre-1959. In the 1950s marking depended on who the original retailer was primarily (and when) and secondarily on who the maker was. 

Carl Hansen and Andreas Tuck were two manufactures who pushed the retailers hard to accept marking from the maker, but even then it is not universal with all  Carl Hansen or Adreas Tuck. AP was much less pushy as they were a relativly new company and probably had just negotiating power. Prior to Carl Hansen there was not a single maker who pushed the issue at all. It is a sign of how much things were changing with exports and tourism and how desirable Hans J Wegner’s chairs were that Carl Hansen had any negotiating power at all to make retailers accept marked furniture. 

You have to understand that the idea of marking was not a ‘maker’s mark’ as we say in English. It was the retailer’s informal right, and probably contractual at the beginning of the era of Danish Modern, and that changed with the maker applying marks and especially adding the designer as a marketing point over the late 1950s. It became something of a common point of negotiation between makers and retailers. Retailers especially the prominent ones who sold the most wanted pieces unmarked so they could apply there mark this is especially the case with Illums Bolighus ( the Danish Furniture retailer). Some makers insisted on their pieces being marked. Some makers didn’t care. Some makers were very happy to give the negotiating chip to the retailers to make them more likely to buy their merchandise. And all of this changed over time between 1960 and 1970 with marks becoming more common by the end of the era. 

The point is that the mark was a piece of marketing for the maker (and designer) and had absolutely nothing to do with proving authenticity. Authenticity has to be proved through the piece itself. The mark is only a single sign of hundreds and it is the least trustworthy sign there is since it can be forged and sometimes has been on high value pieces. 

Credit: 

Dagmar-london.com Blog Post on Hans Wegner 

Hans J Wegner: Just One Good Chair by by Christian Holmsted Olesen