GEORGE NAKASHIMA WOODWORKER, NEW HOPE, PA.
George Nakashima
New Hope, PA: George Nakashima Woodworker, n. d. [c. 1951] Original edition. slim quarto. Saddle stitched thick printed wrappers. 8 pp. Silhouette furniture halftones with short text descriptions on wood types and furniture care. Original studio price list with hand revised price addendum laid in. Wrappers with a couple of faint spots and handling wear, but a very good copy indeed. Rare.
6 x 9-inch saddle stitched brochure with 8 pages of silhouette furniture halftones and short text descriptions on wood types and furniture care, plus a matching original vintage studio price list with hand revised price laid in.
Price list includes wood choices for the following pieces: Arm Chair, Cushioned Chair, Settee with Arms, 6’, Straight Backed Chair, Grass Seated Chair, Plank Stool, Grass Sated Stool, Mira Chair, Long Chair, Amoeba Stools, Lewis Table, Hanging Wall Case, Single Pedestal Desk, Slab Table, Plank Trestle Table, Sliding Door Chest, Small Chest, Small Table, Large Coffee Table, Shell Shaped Coffee Table, Ottoman with Cushion, Hanging Wall Table 66” and Dining Table.
“There must be a union between the spirit in wood and the spirit in man,” said George Nakashima, intoning the philosophy undergirding his world-renowned woodworking practice. As one of the great designers and craftsmen of the twentieth century, George Nakashima’s home, studio and creative compound in New Hope, Pennsylvania, is both a testament to his unique vision and the venerable workspace where he created furniture designed to bring nature into the modern home.
George Nakashima (United States, 1905 – 1990) was born in Spokane, Washington, although he went on to live “almost every place else,” including Japan, France and India. In spite of his cosmopolitanism, much of his practice is indebted to the verdant environment of the Pacific Northwest. According to Mira Nakashima—not only the daughter and sole heir to George Nakashima’s legacy, but also the head of the contemporary Nakashima Woodworkers enterprise and a designer in her own right—“It was a Boy Scout leader who inspired him to go on these long hikes and camping trips. It was beautiful, and he fell in love with trees then and there.”
Nakashima received a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Washington in 1929 and a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931, as well as the Prix Fontainebleau from L’Ecole Americaine des Beaux Arts in France in 1928. He moved back to Paris briefly in 1934, after which he moved to Tokyo to work for architect Antonin Raymond, where he was exposed to the Japanese folk art tradition. His work for Raymond sent him to Pondicherry, India, where he discovered his second career as a furniture maker. While there, he designed and supervised the construction of Golconde, a dormitory for Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
In 1940, Nakashima returned to the United States to start a family with his new wife, Marion Okajima, and the couple soon had their first child, Mira. They had settled in Seattle, Washington, and like many of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast, the Nakashimas were sent to an internment camp in Idaho during WWII. While Nakashima was there he made furniture from whatever pieces of wood he could find and learned techniques of Japanese woodworking from others stationed at the camp, including a skilled woodworker named Gentaro Hikogawa. After nearly a year at the camp, in 1943, Antonin Raymond successfully petitioned for the family’s release, which prompted their relocation to New Hope, Pennsylvania. Living on the Raymond farm, it wasn’t before long until Nakashima began making furniture once again and, in 1945, opened his furniture and woodworking studio.
On Nakashima’s property, he designed the family’s quarters, the woodshop, and many out buildings, including an arboretum. There he created a body of work that incorporated Japanese design and shop practices, as well as Modernism—work that made his name synonymous with the best of 20th century Studio Craftsman furniture.
Nakashima believed that the tree and its wood dictated the piece it was to become. He elevated what others would see as imperfections: choosing boards with knots and burls and cracks, which he would enhance and stabilize with butterfly joints. He designed furnishings for sitting, dining, sleeping, and working. While all his work is prized, his Frenchman’s Cove and Conoid tables are most so, particularly when executed in exotic woods and with free edges. Many of his designs are known by their distinctive bases: Conoid, Miguren, Trestle, and Pyramid among them. He is also known for his Mira chairs and stools, named for his daughter, who now leads his shop and continues his design legacy.
While Nakashima’s philosophy did not embrace mass production, he did collaborate with Knoll from 1945-1954 and on the Origins line with Widdicomb-Mueller between 1957 and 1961. Major commissions included furnishings for Nelson Rockefeller and Columbia University. His works are represented in the most important institutions in the world. Among many awards from the AIA and other prestigious institutions, Nakashima received the Third Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor and Government of Japan. He received the designation "Living Treasure" in the United States, and he worked and exhibited until shortly before his death in June 1990, one week after receiving his final award, Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus, from the University of Washington.