Although Swanky Retro has never encountered a piece of
furniture from this artist, we love his designs and philosophy so much that
we’d probably keep anything we did find for ourselves!
The artist/philosopher/architect who is known as the father
of the American Craft Movement, George Katsutoshi Nakashima (1905–1990) made it
his mission to guard the souls of trees. He felt that the trees were his relatives
and deserving of great respect.
Photo credit:
craftinamerica.org
Most of his furniture pieces incorporate the natural
knotholes and gaps in the wood, taking the natural beauty of the tree’s shape
and enhancing it. He explains his philosophy in his autobiography written in
1981, The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker’s
Reflections.
While many of his contemporaries fiddled with stainless
steel, Formica and molded plastic, Nakashima worked in wood: walnut, bubinga,
rosewood, and cherry.
He
often contemplated a piece of wood for years, meditating with it, before a
design took shape.
Photo credit:
chubbcollectors.com
His signature designs are his large-scale free-form tables
with tops made from a single piece of wood with unfinished edges that follow
the natural shape of the wood.
Born in Spokane, Washington, Nakashima received his masters
in architecture from MIT. His career took him everywhere from New York, to
Paris, Tokyo, and Pondicherry, India where the local ashram’s guru dubbed him
“Sundarananda,” which is Sanskrit for “One who delights in beauty.”
Throughout his lifetime, Nakashima explored the intrinsic
beauty and expressive qualities of wood. His bond with nature began with his
boyhood experiences as an Eagle Scout. He studied woodworking with a Japanese
master and learned the ancient techniques of joinery.
He
was fascinated with the Japanese Folk Art movement that he encountered in the
1930s, which called for a return to traditional techniques and craftsmanship.
Photo credit: badluxury.blogspot.com
He was often interested in what other woodworkers would
throw away, using their discards and turning them into astoundingly beautiful
pieces. He preferred keeping things “hand-cut, with a built up penetrating oil
finish so that the surface took on a greater smoothness, depth, and shimmer,
bringing out the intricate dazzle of the grains. Some grains look almost
three-dimensional.”
Photo credit:
badluxury.blogspot.com
Nakashima’s work achieves a warmth, grace and purity that
make it so universally appealing and appropriate, and with the same flourish of
movement as a Picasso.
He
is truly in a category by himself, creating an aesthetic bridge between East
and West.
“People feel that living with a Nakashima can give them
peace. Especially in this world, which is so fast and materialistic . . . You
can’t sit on a Nakashima chair and think bad thoughts,” says Mira
Nakashima-Yarnall, George Nakashima’s daughter and torchbearer.
Mira has reopened the Nakashima Studio in New
Hope, Pennsylvania, and continues to make some of the more popular and famous
designs of her father’s including the conoid chair (see photo).
Conoid chair. Photo credit: Rosemary McKittrick
Nakashima wrote in his autobiography that he believed
furniture should be used and lived with, that scratches and dents add character
to the pieces (a process he described as "Kevinising" after his son Kevin who had made several scratches on furniture in their home). He was quite selfless, and many historians have remarked about
his distinct lack of ego: he refused to sign pieces until 1980—and then only in
India ink with a felt-tip pen—and then only under pressure because so many imitators
were beginning to copy his work.
Nakashima often jokingly referred to himself as a “Hindu
Catholic Shaker Japanese American.” He believed in the Shaker work ethic,
directing his endeavors toward the divine and making things useful and
beautiful, as simply as possible. He said, “My relationship to furniture and
construction is basically my dialog with a tree, with a complete and psychic
empathy.”
His pieces are very expensive (a Frenchman's Cove style table on PBS's Antiques Roadshow was appraised at $50-60 K, some pieces have sold for $500,000). George Nakashima
was such a citizen of the world that there is global interest in his works.
1952 – gold medal for craftsmanship, American Institute of
Architecture
1979 – made Fellow of the American Craft Council
1981 – Hazlett Award
The Martin Guitar Company has honored George Nakashima with
the Claro Walnut Commemorative Edition acoustic guitar:
Several Nakashima pieces are on display at the James A.
Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. Many other important museums have Nakashima items as well.
