Johnny Sørensen
Helsingør, Denmark

When the Danish King Frederik IX shook hands with Rud Thygesen and Johnny Sørensen in 1970 in thanks for their 70th birthday gift, it launched a new era in the lives of the two young furniture designers. Until then, they had only just managed to eke out a living from their design studio, a lifelong dream, but following the royal handshake and photos in illustrated weeklies, their exclusive furniture collections attracted everyone’s attention, and the fairytale about the ‘King’s Furniture’ unfolded. Johnny Sørensen and Rud Thygesen have been showered with prizes, and not only for the King’s Furniture, because the studio has produced many more collections since the newly qualified designers resisted the general trend and struck out on their own as independent designers. One of their projects was the chairs they designed in the 1980s for Café Victor, a hip hang-out in downtown Copenhagen, and the two furniture designers still exhibit annually at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition independently of each other – just for the fun of it. ‘Manufacturers wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. But we do it “con amore”.’