Verner Panton was born in the Danish village of Gamtofte and is known worldwide for his colorful pop art designs, often in plastic. After his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where lighting designer Poul Henningsen was one of his teachers, he worked a couple of years for Arne Jacobsen, another Danish design icon. In 1955 he left to start his own architecture and design studio.

At the height of Danish design during the 1950s designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner worked mostly in wood but Panton wanted to take Danish design to another level. He made the first inflatable furniture and created his designs in bright colorful plastic. He said that “The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination. Most people spend their life living in dreary, grey-beige conformity, mortally afraid of using colors”. He wanted to make peoples lives more colorful and exciting.

His first major commission was the smaller Cone Chair that Panton designed for his parents’ restaurant in 1958. A customer admired it and offered to put it into production. According to Financial Times the arrival of Panton’s Cone Chair at a New York, Fifth Avenue shop stirred up such a commotion the NYPD ordered the chair to be removed. In 1959, ayear after his design rendered the attention in New York, Panton designed the bigger Heart Cone Chair and it became an instant classic.

During the 1960s Verner Panton started working with Vitra, which still produces his designs today like the even more famous stackable Panton chair. Designed in 1959 it was the first chair to be made from a single piece of molded plastic.

Product information

The size 40x50 cm (approx 16x20”) are signed and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White 310g archival paper and are sold in a limited edition of 50 prints.

The size 30x40 cm (approx 12x16”) are printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced 210g archival paper.