Tove Edvard Kindt-Larsen Teak Coffee Table for France Son

Together, Tove Edvard Kindt-Larsen helped usher in the golden era of Scandinavian modern furniture design through their significant involvement with the Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibitions from the 1930s through the ’70s.

Married in 1937, Tove and Edvard Kindt-Larsen (1906–94; 1901–82) etched out names for themselves independently and as a pair. Tove was one of the first female designers to come to the fore during Denmark’s rise in furniture production. She studied under the legendary Kaare Klint at the Department of Furniture Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts years after she started working in the industry.

Edvard received great recognition for his large hotel project by the lakes in Copenhagen and his house in Klampenborg, which he designed in 1962. Edvard was awarded the Eckersberg Medal from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1949 for his work as an architect.

While both were skilled designers — the couple’s coffee tables, armchairs and other pieces for France Søn, Seffle Möbelfabrik and more are widely collected today — Edvard and Tove’s greatest contribution is undoubtedly their involvement with the Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibitions. The shows they assembled were integral to putting Danish design on the map, with Edvard serving as head of the exhibitions from 1943 to ’66. During this period, mid-century Danish design truly took off in the United States — when Scandinavia’s simple, curvilinear wooden furniture, home goods and textiles suddenly seemed the perfect foil for glass-and-steel skyscrapers. 

Together, the pair organized events that ignited collaborations between big-name Danish designers such as Hans J. Wegner and Johannes Hansen, Finn Juhl and Niels Vodder, Ole Wanscher and A.J. Iversen, Jacob Kjær and Peder Moos, and more. 

The guild provided a platform for the designers to showcase their now-iconic works, including Wegner’s Round chair, the rustic and recognizable Hunting chair and Spanish chair — both created by Børge Mogensen — and Finn Juhl’s Chieftain chair, 46 chair and 46 sofa. 

Find antique Tove Edvard Kindt-Larsen side tables, lounge chairs, case pieces and other furniture on 1stDibs. 

Today, Swedish manufacturer DUX’s most popular furniture lines — as well as the furnishings created by its first president, Folke Ohlsson — are synonymous with the work that vintage mid-century modern design obsessives love. Also important, the brand is known for some of the most commonplace means of furniture shipping and production in the modern era.

In Sweden, Studio Ljungs Industrier AB is the large family-owned parent company of Duxiana (in America, DUX). Initially a purveyor of bedding that is today celebrated for its ergonomically guided designs, Ljungs Industrier was founded by entrepreneur (and chocolate maker) Efraim Ljung in 1926. In 1950, Folke Ohlsson, then leading Ljungs Industrier’s design team, decamped to the States to explore how he could expand DUX’s business, which at that point included a wide range of furniture. Ohlsson established a DUX office not long after he arrived in California, first in San Francisco and later in Burlingame.

On the West Coast, the booming postwar American market was eager to embrace DUX’s affordable and practical bedroom furnishings, tables, armchairs and other seating. Characterized by sleek walnut and teak frames and low-slung silhouettes, the brand’s designs were emblematic of a generation of Scandinavian modernism that had gained popularity owing to visionaries such as product designer and architect Greta Magnusson-Grossman, who arrived in California from Sweden a decade prior to Ohlsson, and Finn Juhl, who created a Danish modern line for Michigan’s Baker Furniture Company in 1951.

DUX frequently collaborated with top-tier furniture design talent — among them Bruno Mathsson, Edward Wormley and Alf Svensson, a chief designer in the Malmö, Sweden, office of Ljungs Industrier — expanding the brand’s portfolio and establishing credibility as a design source. Ohlsson’s own designs, such as his comfortable leather lounges and wool-upholstered reclining rocking chairs, continue to be among the brand’s most desirable — and most imitated — however.

In 1949, DUX put into practice an idea that Ohlsson patented for the so-called “knock-down,” or “KD,” chair, a term referencing easy, flat-pack assembly. It saved DUX space in warehouses and money on transportation and was a concept that would provide inspiration to hundreds of subsequent companies — most notably fellow Swedish brand IKEA.

Today, vintage DUX sofas and dining chairs are valuable collector’s items. Find this coveted seating and other authentic DUX furniture on 1stDibs.