Shopping Cart

No products in the cart.

George Nakashima

George Nakashima

'.the_title().'

George Nakashima was born in Spokane, Washington in 1905 to Japanese parents who had immigrated to the United States. Educated and trained as an architect at the University of Washington, Nakashima received his Master’s degree in Architecture from M.I.T. in 1930. After working briefly as an architect in the United States he left for Paris seeking the creative energies of one of the great urban centers of the day. From there he traveled extensively, ending up at the home of his grandmother, living on a farm on the outskirts of Tokyo. In 1934 George Nakashima went to work in Tokyo for the architect Antonin Raymond. Nakashima volunteered to go to Pondicherry, India to design and direct the construction of an ashram for the spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo. The teachings of Aurobindo were strong and were to shape Nakashima’s philosophy for the rest of his career. He returned to Japan where he met Marion Okajiima, who was also born in the United States. The couple married and settled in Seattle where George Nakashima opened his first furniture business in 1941. His first important furniture commission, for André Ligné, brought him immediate recognition when the Ligné interior was published in California Arts and Architecture in 1941. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, Nakashima and his family, like many other Americans of Japanese descent, were placed in a concentration camp in Idaho. Here he meet a Nisei woodworker and learned the art of Japanese woodworking. Because of sponsorship by his previous employer, Antonin Raymond, George Nakashima and his family were able to leave the camp and move to Pennsylvania. In 1944, he set up his workshop on the Nakashima homestead in New Hope, PA. He maintained and expanded his facilities in New Hope until his death in 1990. Nakashima was one of the great innovators of twentieth-century design, and produced a new design vocabulary that was like nothing that had gone before it. His designs caused electric shocks in two overlapping worlds, the world of design, and the “wood” world. As in his own name, George Nakashima brought together two incongruous design styles: traditional Japanese design and American vernacular design, found in Windsor chairs, country furniture, Shaker and so on. From these two roots he produced a unique modern idiom, something that was just not there before him.

View Works

Join Our Mailing List: Get the latest news, exclusive fair previews, and special access to new acquisitions.

Subscription Form

We respect your privacy and promise to only send you the best content.