Kjaerholm designed modern functionalist furniture that was praised for its understated elegance and clean lines. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen where he would later teach.

He was formally trained as a cabinetmaker, although he maintained a close relationship with natural woods and traditional processes, his work was geared more towards mass production and the energy of the modern movement. Kjaerholm was awarded the Lunning Prize in 1958 and worked as an exhibition designer in Denmark and abroad. The Mobilia Press wrote of him, "when Poul Kjaerholm's furniture is evaluated today, it is not by virtue of its quantity, but of its supremacy.