Liisi Beckmann was a Finnish designer and artist born Liisi Marjatta Meronen in Kirvu, Karelia, in 1924. She studied at the Institute of Industrial Art in Helsinki, where her teachers included Tapio Wirkkala and Ilmari Tapiovaara, and continued her education through graphic art studies in Germany and drawing courses at Milan's Brera Academy. After moving to Milan in 1957, she worked in La Rinascente's development studio before establishing collaborations with Italian manufacturers.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Beckmann designed furniture and objects for companies including Zanotta, Vistosi, Gabbianelli, and Bonacina. Her defining work, the Karelia armchair designed for Zanotta in 1966, used undulating polyurethane foam to create one of the era's earliest frameless chairs. Inspired by the bays, lakes, and irregular landscape of her native Karelia, the design became an emblem of 1960s counterculture and remains her most recognized contribution to modern furniture. Beckmann later concentrated on painting and sculpture, with work represented in museum collections and international exhibitions. She died in Finland in 2004.
