Jens Risom - Unlike architect Alvar Aalto or Hans Wegner whose international influence remained rooted in Finland and Denmark respectively, Jens Risom emigrated from Europe to the U.S. when he was just 23 years of age. Like other Scandinavian designers such as Josef Frank and Kaare Klint, Risom continued to honor tradition in modern design, combining old and new in highly original ways.
Jens Risom’s career has spanned nearly sixty years. He began his study of design in the Copehagen workshop of Kaare Klint in 1935 and joined Ernst Kuhn’s architectural office in 1938, where he designed furniture and interiors. In 1939, Risom emigrated to the U.S. and in 1941 designed the first chair manufactured by Knoll. Risom described the chair as "very basic, very simple, inexpensive, easy to make." The chair was constructed with a birch wood frame and, because of wartime materials constraints, cheap but strong army surplus webbing and has inspired countless imitations.

Risom continued to create simple, well-crafted modern furniture with Knoll and George Jensen, but established his own design studio, Jens Risom Design, in 1946. The studio was acquired by Dictaphone in 1970 and in 1973, Risom became chief executive of Design Control, a Connecticut based design consultancy.