The name Jens Risom is very closely linked to the American furniture manufacturer Knoll International. The Dane, born in 1916, was the first and at the beginning the only designer at Knoll. After Jens Risom and Hans Knoll got to know each other at the beginning of the 1940s, they joined forces and began to realise interior installations for clients in the New York area. The division of labour was clear: Hans Knoll took care of business, Risom designed the furniture. The first official Knoll catalogue included 15 designs by the Danish designer. Jens Risom proved to be particularly ingenious and inventive during the war years: because of the lack of materials, he developed a whole series of furniture made of waste wood and nylon belts of parachute. Furniture that far from being provisional was innovative, modern furniture, which today stand among the classics of their epoch. A representative of this series is the elegant Risom lounge chair, which has been produced by Knoll, as well as several other designs of Risom, since 1994.
...Born in Copenhagen Jens Risom studied at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts under teachers such as the great Kaare Klint before in 1939 he travelled to America... In 1941 Jens Risom was introduced to Hans Knoll and in the same year created the first commissioned pieces for Hans Knoll's fledgling furniture company...
