Kaare Klint was at a young age determined to become an artist and studied at a.o. P.S. Krøyers school. At the age of 16 he got to design decorations for the newly built Court House in Copenhagen. Klint soon abandoned his artistic dreams and turned to cabinetmaking which he studied in Kalundborg and Copenhagen from 1893. He also studied at a technical school in Copenhagen, at Jens Møller-Jensens furniture school and at the Artist Studios Schools under Johan Rohde.
Since Klint’s father P.V. Jensen-Klint was an architect, he took on his son as a student. From 1930-40 Klint finished his father’s designs for the Grundtvig church, for which he also designed a chair. As a furniture designer Klint made his first works for architect Carl Petersen and his Faaborg Museum in 1914. The result was an armchair, called the Faaborg chair, which has been called the first Danish modernist chair and was to become the first of Klint’s many interiors and furnishings for museums.
In 1921 to 26 Klint was responsible, together with Thorkild Henningsen and Ivar Benstsen, for the conversion of the Fredrik’s Hospital in Copenhagen into the Danish Museum of Art & Design. For the museum Klint designed a mahogany chair inspired by English 18th century design called Rød Stol (eng. Red chair).
In 1924 Klint was appointed the first associate professor in interior architecture and furniture design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where he a.o made pervasive furniture dimension studies. In 1944 he became professor at the department of architecture at the same school, a position he held until his death in 1954. “The Klint school” became a reaction on the modernistic use of new materials and simplified constructions.
One of Klint’s most known furniture designs is the KK47000 Safari chair, that was produced by Rud Rasmussen and launched at the Københavns Snedkerlaugs exhibition in 1933. The Safari Chair was, as most of Klint’s designs, inspired by British predecessors but with an elaborated construction and well-thought-out proportions.
From 1933 to – 35, Klint designed the Bethlehem church in Copenhagen, based on his father’s sketches. He also designed textiles, monuments, and organs. Kaare Klint received the Eckersbergs Medal in 1924 and the C.F. Hansen Medal in 1928 and -54. He died the same year at the age of 66.
At the Museum of Furniture Studies Klint is represented with the a.o. the Safari chair (1933) and the Rocking chair (1942).
