Known as the experimental and uncompromising bad boy of post-war Danish design, Verner Panton pushed the design envelope as far as he could, making him one of Denmark's most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers. He used steel wire frames and moulded plastic like no designer before him.

Born in 1926 and raised on the small Danish island of Funen, Panton attended Odense Technical College and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. As a young man he worked in the design offices of his famed countryman, Arne Jacobsen working on the development of the Ant chair and gaining commissions for furniture designs from Fritz Hansen.

Panton is probably most well known for his eponymous moulded plastic Panton Chair, also known by its earliest name from 1956 as the S-Chair, developed with Vitra, as well as the Cone Chair and Heart Cone Chair.