Risom Redux

Among 91-year-old furniture designer Jens Risom’s extensive oeuvre, it’s hard to find an uncomely curve. But beyond his seminal pieces for Knoll, very little of his work is still in production. Two years ago Ralph Pucci International remedied the situation somewhat with a collection of 30 or so reeditions originally issued in the 1950s and ’60s, and recently it brought out a few more, including a tufted club sofa and classic Danish Modernist armchairs in pastel colors.

Since the original drawings have long since been lost, Risom had to reconstruct the designs from catalogs, existing chairs, and his own memory. Remarkably, only one, a fat white armchair with a U-shaped headrest, fell short: too broad at the bottom, too deep in the seat. “I’m not totally happy with it,” Risom says. “But there was nothing we could do. We were just guessing at it.” He turns a skeptical eye toward the chair. “It’s all right,” he says. “Considering that nobody has seen the original, it’ll do. We’ll correct it a little bit, but most people won’t know the difference.”