The Dualities of George Nakashima
Photo credit: George Nakashima Woodworkers
Long before I was familiar with design as an industry or vocation, I was familiar with George Nakashima. I grew up near New Hope, Pennsylvania where Nakashima built his woodworking studio and residence. Over the years I had ample opportunity to see his work in person: at Philadelphia’s Moderne Gallery; at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown; at David Rago’s Art and Auction Center; and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (I will confess that I have yet to visit the Nakashima Woodworking Studio in New Hope – it is on my list!).
Like many people, I have a renewed interest in his work due to a 2020 documentary called “George Nakashima Woodworker”, directed by his nephew John Nakashima. There is also a huge interest in Slow Design, a reaction to both the Industrial and Digital revolutions; this is a desire to return to craft made by hand with environmental considerations that challenge today’s throwaway consumerist culture. Nakashima, to many, is the model of slow design.
So why are people drawn to Nakashima and continue to be fascinated by his work? There are many factors, but the most resonant one is Dualities. This is the notion that there are opposing tensions that create a beautiful, poetic tension. Think of opera: It has some very high and very low notes. It has overtures, arias, etc. If the music and story were all the same components, we would be bored. But instead, our emotions are moved, and we go on a journey through the music. You could say the same about the band Nirvana – they mastered both the loud/soft dynamics and slow/fast tempo of rock music in a four-minute song. Whenever I look at Nakashima’s work, I go to the same poetic place of sensing dualities at play, and it is very satisfying.
Nakashima’s furniture pieces have signature cues that are shared across his prolific body of work: live edge wood pieces that are both wild and restrained; evidence of nature’s handiwork along with his own; and a humble sophistication respecting the authenticity of the wood.
His pieces are infused with his philosophies about nature and conservation. His work lives between the boundaries of design and craft. These were the first dualities that I encountered in his work, and these have seduced me to enter the larger world of Nakashima’s legacy and his own language using wood.
Photo credit: George Nakashima Woodworkers
To enjoy the work of George Nakashima, we must start at the beginning of his story, where dualities of his life first emerge. Born in Spokane in 1905 to Japanese parents, Nakashima was incarcerated at Camp Minidoka in Idaho in 1942. Like many Japanese Americans, this unjust imprisonment and displacement by the US Government led to hardship. Prior to this time, Nakashima was an accomplished architect, educated at University of Washington and MIT, who was also versed in forestry. He worked and travelled internationally in France, Japan, North Africa, and India which no doubt shaped his own sense of modernism. It was his time in India, where Nakashima designed an ashram for spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry while working for Antonin Raymond, that he developed a spiritual attitude towards design for the rest of his life.
His time at Minidoka was spent making objects from wood and bitterbrush, just what was on hand from his surroundings. He met a woodworker who trained Nakashima in traditional Japanese carpentry and joinery. This became the foundation of his practice. After his release from Minidoka, with his family including young daughter Mira (who now runs his studio and is a designer too), he relocated to New Hope in 1944 to begin his studio for architecture and wood furniture.
Photo credit: George Nakashima Woodworkers
Hallmarks of Nakashima’s woodwork include embracing the inherent attributes of the wood, flaws and all. He believed “every tree deserves another life”, and that there is beauty in preserving the cracks, worm holes, burls, grain patterns, etc. He developed his now famous butterfly joint to integrate into wood slabs that have cracks. He also saved wood remnants, using every scrap as much as possible. This may seem frugal but is rather an important strategy in sustainability and respecting nature’s bounty. He respected the whole tree.
Slab Coffee Table by George Nakashima. Photo credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Melvin Schwartz, 1993, 1993-133-1
His work also has a strong sense of structure, no doubt due to his architectural mind, and yet he allows the wood to speak for itself (and not be ancillary or inferior, like much wood is typically viewed in construction). Other dualities include combining wood species within the same piece (for example, his Conoid chair has Walnut legs and frame with Hickory spindles for the seat back). Many of chairs are reminiscent of earlier styles – Shaker and Windsor are the two most recognizable, and yet Nakashima redefines these archetypal chairs into something new and modern through his own lens.
Straight-Backed Chair by George Nakashima. Photo credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Anne d'Harnoncourt in honor of The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Philadelphia Craft Show, 1991, 1991-102-1
As Nakashima’s studio grew and he designed bespoke furniture pieces for many clients, another duality arose, and that was one of manufacturing vs. his hand made work. In the mid-century, there were collaborations from manufacturers such as Knoll and Widdicomb to mass-produce his designs. Nakashima felt removed from the process, he wanted to craft the pieces and not merely design them; he was more invested in the making. This is further evidence of his veneration of wood as a material and vehicle for expression. This most certainly led to a shift in his work later in the 1950’s, where his furniture became more evocative and dramatic, pushing the boundaries of how we view wood in the service of design and craft.
Bench with Back by George Nakashima. Photo credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum (also known as the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2004, 2004-111-2
Prior to this time, Nakashima was forging a relationship with Rene d'Harnoncourt, then director at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Nakashima was interested in showing his work to the museum, as well as meeting design influencers who could help him find clients for his work. Rene’s daughter Anne became the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1982. It was under her leadership that the museum acquired most of their Nakashima pieces. The first Nakashima acquisition at the PMA was a round Walnut dining table from 1957, a gift from Mr. and Mrs. William H. Helfand. This was a bit early from a collector’s viewpoint, as the market for Nakashima’s work didn’t fully manifest until after his death in 1990. The additional pieces in the PMA collection are all acquired in the 1990’s and early 2000’s and are quintessential examples of his furniture. My personal favorite item is the Grass-Seated Chair from 1946, which has that poetic tension of materiality and form. It was a gift to the PMA from Anne d'Harnoncourt in 2001.
Grass-Seated Chair by George Nakashima. Photo credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Anne d'Harnoncourt, 2001, 2001-20-1
Today, George Nakashima’s studio and legacy are still in very much active through his daughter Mira, who herself has participated as a designer, leader, and historian in the studio for her entire career. As we enter a world of the Metaverse and increased globalization, it is work such as Nakashima’s that remind us of the dualities of life and death, the hand vs. machine, craft vs. design, natural vs. synthetic, and respect for makers. We are also reminded how craft can inspire recovery and renewal, and that is aspirational for all of us.
