'Chair for Restaurant in Hotel Richmond' Large Finn Juhl Watercolour Print, Framed

Finn Juhl Watercolour Print - ‘Chair for Restaurant in Hotel Richmond’ - Ordrupgaard Edition

A beautiful print of an original chair watercolour by Finn Juhl, presented with the handwritten title ‘Chair for Restaurant in Hotel Richmond’ and accompanying notes, directly referencing Juhl’s thoughtful design process. Housed in a dark wood frame and glazed with premium art glass to reduce glare and protect the artwork.

The print depicts one of Juhl’s chair explorations in delicate watercolour, a medium he employed throughout his career not only as part of his design development but also to express spatial ideas, colour studies, and compositional nuance. Juhl’s watercolours reveal how he considered chairs not just as functional objects but as sculptural forms occupying space, colour and proportion. The fluid washes and careful detailing demonstrate the designer’s sensitivity to line and form even before pieces moved into prototype and production.

This artwork is an elegant document of Juhl’s creative thinking and sits well with interiors that appreciate design history and the artistry behind seminal Scandinavian modern pieces.

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Designer — Finn Juhl (1912–1989)

Finn Juhl was a Danish architect and designer whose work was pivotal in establishing Danish Modern as a globally recognised design movement. Born on 30 January 1912 in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Juhl originally enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts to study architecture. Trained under prominent figures and exposed to modernist ideas early in his career, he began designing furniture in the late 1930s, producing pieces that diverged sharply from traditional Nordic design of the period. Juhl was one of the first Scandinavian designers to treat furniture as organic, sculptural objects rather than purely functional constructs, often taking wood to its technical limits and creating what some critics have described as architectural seating. His chairs, such as the 45 Chair (1945) and Chieftain Chair (1949), are considered hallmarks of mid-century design and helped establish Danish furniture on the international stage; institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired examples in the 1950s. Besides furniture, Juhl’s work spanned interiors, exhibition design and architectural commissions, and his home at Ordrupgaard near Copenhagen now forms part of the museum’s cultural programme. Throughout his career, Juhl used watercolours and drawings as tools to explore colour, form and proportion long before realising his ideas in wood and textiles, leaving behind a substantial body of work that offers rich insight into his design philosophy.  

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Artwork & Provenance

Title (as on the watercolour): Chair for Restaurant in Hotel Richmond
Origin: Inspired by or associated with the collections and exhibitions of the Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Denmark, a prominent museum for Northern European and Danish art founded in 1918, with close ties to Finn Juhl’s house and legacy. Ordrupgaard’s programme includes presentation of design and modernist work in dialogue with fine art.  

Medium: Watercolour reproduction on archival paper
Framing: Dark–wood frame with low-reflective art glass
Condition: Excellent, protected with museum-grade glazing