Erik Chambert had gotten his apprentice diploma in carpenting when he began studying to become an interior architect. In 1925 he was one of the first to graduate in that field from Högre Konstindustriella Skolan (from 1993 Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm. From the year of his graduation, Chambert and his brother Otto ran the family furniture company Chamberts Möbelfabrik in Norrköping, which had been founded by their father in 1883.
Erik Chambert became the company’s artistic director, and he designed several furniture series during a long period of time. The Poem chair with its tall back made of white lacquered birch and a rattan seat, from 1953 is one of the most prolific designs.
Chambert's breakthrough as an interior architect came at the Stockholm Exhibiton in 1930 where he furnished an apartment designed by architect Kurt van Schmalensee in the modernistic style. Among the pieces Chambert made for the exhibition one can mention a foldable deck chair with armrest in red lacquered steel.
During the 1930’s Chambert began working in intarsia and for the world exhibition in Brussels 1935, he designed a cabinet made of birch wood with inlays of mother of pearl. One of Chambert’s best known pieces is the intarsia cabinet Livets vågskål (eng. the weighbowl of life) from 1945, that is a part of the permanent collection at the Swedish National Museum.
Chambert made interior design for private homes as well as companies. Through his work with the Housing committee (Byggnadsstyrelsen) Chambert also made furnishings for the Royal Castle Haga and the Tessin Palace in Stockholm.
From the 1940’s Chambert worked as an artist with “concretistic” geometric motifs in watercolor, gouache and oil. In the textile prints he designed for his own furniture as well as for public spaces, he combined his designers’ skills with his artistic ability.
Erik Chambert was represented at several national, as well as international, exhibitions both as a designer and an artist, including the world exhibitions in Paris 1937 and New York 1939. Two years after his death in 1988, a retrospective exhibition of Chambert’s work opened at Millesgården Art Gallery in Stockholm and later at Norrköping´s Art Museum 2015-2016.
