NEW YORK.- From June 2 to October 1, 2005, the AXA Gallery, in cooperation with the Vitra Design Museum, will present a major exhibition on the work of Danish designer and architect Verner Panton (1926-1998). True to the character of its featured designer, the exhibition creates a highly sensory atmosphere, presenting Panton's boldly patterned fabric designs, futuristic furniture, colorful light fixtures, and trademark molded plastic chairs. The Vitra Design Museum has assembled this large-scale retrospective as a compliment to Verner Panton's extraordinarily extensive and diverse body of work.

It is hard to distinguish which is the 1960s design icon - the classic single piece molded plastic chair or Panton himself. Verner Panton's many inventions - flowerpot lamps, multi-leveled living towers, and inflatable furniture - can be seen individually as historic advances in interior design, but collectively they reveal a greater vision. Panton's interests were not limited to the design of single objects, but extended to the development of entire spaces. The artist said of his work, "I can't bear to enter a room and see the sofa and coffee table and two armchairs, immediately knowing that we are going to be stuck there for an entire evening. I made furniture that could be raised and lowered in space so that one could have a different view of the surrounding and a new angle on life." In this context Verner Panton's important contribution to modern design can be fully understood.

Verner Panton - The Collected Works was curated and organized by the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany. The AXA Gallery is sponsored by AXA Financial. Additional assistance has been provided by AXA Art Insurance Corporation.

As a child Verner Panton longed to become a painter, but showing little talent for the subject he chose to study architecture. Since schools of design as we know them today did not exist at the time, it was not unusual for artists in Panton's generation to become designers via architectural training. Undoubtedly Panton would later combine his passions for art and function, experimenting with both form and color, to become one of the greatest innovators in modern design. The young architect had two encounters that probably had the most influence on his professional development and thus his career path. While studying at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen in the late 1940s, Panton met Poul Henningsen, known internationally for his designs in lighting. Henningsen soon began to mentor Panton in Scandinavian tradition, an influence that can be clearly seen in Panton's own lighting fixtures. Among many things, Henningsen taught Panton a systematic approach to solving design problems, an openness to technical innovations, and a broader conception of functionality. Panton met his second great influence in 1950 when he began working for Arne Jacobsen. At the time Arne Jacobsen, who was regarded as Denmark's leading architect and designer, was working on one of his most famous designs - the Ant chair. Working for Jacobsen, Panton gained experience handling new materials, and searching for an appropriate production technology. Indeed, Panton remarked of his time with Jacobsen that he had "learned more from him than from anyone else".

Early in his career Panton struggled to find an audience for his designs. Like many European artists living in the Beat years of the 1950s, Panton bought an old camper van to travel the continent. He turned the VW camper into a mobile studio and made several extensive journeys through Europe, learning about the latest developments in international design and making contacts with other artists, producers, and distributors. In the late 1940s and early 1950s - the period that Panton was finishing his training in design and beginning his career - the Scandinavian countries (and the United States), were defining modern design. Traditional Scandinavian style that Panton was trained in was strongly characterized by handicraft traditions in its choice of materials and production methods. But many designers whom Panton encountered on his travels were challenging this norm by working with newly developed materials, and using new industrial production techniques. Panton's travels led to a basic understanding of the large variety of production options available to apply to a design project. More importantly perhaps, his exposure to cultural ferment of the late fifties led to his development as one of the most reputable and influential designers of the sixties.

Verner Panton's affection for new production materials and his quest to rethink traditional design standards can be best seen in his most famous piece: the Panton Chair. This chair, manufactured by Vitra and unveiled to the world in 1967, immediately marked its place in the history of design by becoming the first chair to be made in one piece, entirely from synthetic material. It was a furniture designer's dream - a completed chair that was literally one piece. A single colored piece of curved plastic, the bold and elegant chair seemed to grow out of the floor. The new simplified production method was cost effective; a chair that could be taken as one part directly from the mold would eliminate the assembly process. Not only did the chair set a new standard for what was technically achievable (the chair was also stackable), it defined a new era of design. Departing completely from the Danish craft tradition and strict functionalism of his predecessors, with this chair Panton now belonged to a distinctly international design community.

Even more evidence of Panton's departure from Danish functionalism, and of his influence on 1960s popular design, is witnessed in his fearless use of color. "I am not fond of white," Panton once stated. "The world would be more beautiful without it. There should be a tax on white paint." He used strong, often clashing colors, on everything. Again, Panton's artistic impulse seemed to be guiding his design principles, so much so that color was often the most essential feature in his work. For Panton, the use of color was not only a way of heightening the effect of a single piece, but a means to tie all pieces together to form a larger whole. Perhaps what set Panton apart most from other prominent designers of his time was his vision of a complete ambience. His goal to reach a holistic design solution - one that overcame the traditional room division into three separate worlds, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling - was largely aided by the use of his textile designs. In 1969, he developed a systematic structure that was based on eight colors, five geometric shapes (circles, squares, stripes, curves, and checkers), two fabrics (cotton velour and cotton cretonne) and three sizes of repeats. The system was created to allow home textiles, in the form of furnishing fabrics and carpets, to mix and match, thus enabling a more encompassing living environment.