George Nakashima

George Nakashima studied at MIT School of Architecture and Planning and University of Washington. Work by George Nakashima is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum. Distinctions recorded are Fellow of the American Craft Council.

• Name — George Nakashima • Birth Name — George Katsutoshi Nakashima • Born — 24 May 1905 • Birthplace — Spokane, Washington • Died — 15 June 1990 • Place of death — New Hope, Pennsylvania • Movement — American craft movement • Education — * University of Washington • Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Training — Gentaro Hikogawa (1942) • Field — Furniture and woodworking designer, architect • Spouse — Marion Okajima • Children — * Mira Nakashima • Kevin Katsuya Nakashima

Nakashima was born in 1905 in Spokane, Washington, to Katsuharu and Suzu Nakashima. He enrolled in the University of Washington program in architecture, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) in 1929. In 1931, after earning a master's degree in architecture from M.I.T., Nakashima sold his car and purchased a round-the-world tramp steamship ticket. He spent a year in France working odd jobs to fund an artist's lifestyle. In Paris he was introduced to architect Le Corbusier, the two bonding over their views on the architect’s moral obligation to society and the practice as a spiritual activity. He then went on to North Africa and eventually to Japan. While in Japan, Nakashima went to work for Antonin Raymond, an American architect who had collaborated with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Imperial Hotel. While working for Raymond, Nakashima toured Japan extensively, studying the subtleties of Japanese architecture and design. During this period he met Marion Okajima, who would become his wife. While working for Raymond, Nakashima worked as the project architect for the Golconde Dormitory in Pondicherry, India, supervising construction from 1937 to 1939 and immersing himself in the spiritual teachings of the Aurobindo sect. In 1964, Gira Sarabhai, invited Nakashima to Ahmedabad. He spent three weeks in NID's wood workshop, designing chairs, benches, tables, ottomans, lounges, daybeds, shelves and mirror frames. They were kept in production in limited numbers at the institute by referring to the detailed drawings and instructions left by Nakashima, until about 1975, when Sarabhai stepped down.

• Illustration — George Nakashima chair In 1937, Raymond's company was commissioned to build a dormitory at an ashram in Puducherry, India for which Nakashima was the primary construction consultant. It was here that Nakashima made his first furniture. • Illustration — Conoid Bench (1977) by George Nakashima at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC in 2022 In 1940, Nakashima returned to America and began to make furniture and teach woodworking in Seattle. He was interned during the Second World War, like others of Japanese ancestry, being sent to Camp Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho, in March 1942. At the camp he met Gentaro (sometimes spelled Gentauro) Hikogawa, a man trained in traditional Japanese carpentry. Under his tutelage, Nakashima learned to master traditional Japanese hand tools and joinery techniques. Perhaps more significantly, he began to approach woodworking with discipline and patience, striving for perfection in every stage of construction. Nakashima's signature woodworking design was his large-scale tables made of large wood slabs with smooth tops but unfinished natural edges, consisting of multiple slabs connected with butterfly joints. Nakashima, along with the Danish furniture maker Tage Frid, Swedish James Krenov, and Americans Wharton Esherick and Art Carpenter, are considered to be among the "first generation" of Studio Furniture makers and are cited as highly influential to the field of contemporary woodworking.

In 1943, Antonin Raymond successfully sponsored Nakashima's release from the camp and invited him to his farm to work as a chicken farmer in New Hope, Pennsylvania. In his studio and workshop at New Hope, Nakashima explored the organic expressiveness of wood and choosing boards with knots and burls and figured grain. He designed furniture lines for Knoll, including the Straight Back Chair (which is still in production), and Widdicomb-Mueller as he continued his private commissions. The studio grew incrementally until Nelson Rockefeller commissioned 200 pieces for his house in Pocantico Hills, New York, in 1973. Nakashima cited diverse inspirations for his work including the Japanese tea ceremony, American Shaker furniture, and the Zen Buddhist ideals of beauty. Nakashima self-identified as a "Hindu Catholic Shaker Japanese American." Drawing on Japanese designs and shop practices, as well as on American and International Modern styles, Nakashima created a body of work that would make his name synonymous with the best of 20th century American Art furniture.