Word: nakashima
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just days after their Princeton, N.J., house burned down, physician Arthur Krosnick and his wife Evelyn visited their friend George Nakashima. Over three decades, the Krosnicks had collected 114 pieces of furniture created by Nakashima, who lives in Bucks County, Pa. Now they asked the 84-year-old craftsman if he could re-create the collection, nearly all of which was lost in the fire. Any other octogenarian might have hesitated, but not Nakashima. With the same kind of powerful understatement that characterizes his furniture, he agreed, remarking, "You've been loyal, and I'd like to help...
...nearly half a century, Nakashima has been producing unique furniture for loyal clients. In the process, he has also built a distinguished reputation. Fellow furniture maker Sam Maloof calls him the "elder statesman" of the postwar American crafts movement; Anne d'Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, proclaims him "a national treasure." To further polish his renown, a warm and witty retrospective show of his work is now on view at the American Crafts Museum in New York City. "Full Circle" presents 43 of Nakashima's best pieces, from a battered 1944 teak coffee table to a masterly...
...Nakashima appreciates the attention, but accolades run against his self- effacing grain. Trained as an architect at M.I.T., he took up furniture making after studying with spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, India, during the 1930s. "The negation of the ego," says Nakashima, "is central in Indian philosophy. If you can negate your ego, you can develop." During World War II, Nakashima advanced his craft in an Idaho detention camp for Japanese Americans. There he learned about prejudice. He also learned woodworking from a fellow internee who had been trained as a carpenter in Japan...
...Nakashima's bench mark is the wood itself: form follows grain. He has gathered an extensive collection of lumber that includes slabs of Carpathian elm, Oregon myrtle and French olive ash. Nakashima says, "I'm something of a Druid," and he sallies into the woods to check promising trees himself. "I use logs that would be almost useless to commercial furniture makers, with their concern for regular grain and thin veneers," he adds. "If a tree has had a joyful life it produces a beautiful grain. Other trees have lived unhappily -- bad weather or a terrible location. We use both...
...contrast, the work of former Painter Peter Danko, 33, of Alexandria, Va., is an advance along the simple path cut by Nakashima. Danko's furniture represents an intriguing blend of the sculptural and the functional, with a healthy respect for the natural qualities of the wood. More over, pieces like the Danko Chair are light in weight and appearance and thus well suited to small apartments. With delight ful ingenuity, Danko is experimenting with folding chairs of molded plywood. One of the plies is a bendable, plastic material, so the chair folds without metal hinges...