Hans J. Wegner was born in Tonder, Jutland in 1914. He studied furniture design at the School of Applied Arts, Copenhagen. He participated in the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild exhibition for the first time in 1938 and won twenty-seven prizes by 1968.
Wegner believed that furniture should be interesting even when viewed from the back. He made mostly chairs which totaled about five hundred by the end of his career. He believed in reducing old chairs to their basic framework and then experimenting and turning it into something else.
Many of his chairs are made out of wood and wicker. His Round chair was his greatest success because of it graceful lines that gave it elegance but it was also easy to mass produce. It was so well liked that one person bought four hundred alone. He created other innovative designs such as the Valet chair which has the back the shape of a coat hanger and the Circle armchair, which has castors on its back legs, enabling it to be moved like a wheelbarrow.