How To Identify George Nakashima Furniture

At Moderne Gallery, we continue to discover George Nakashima’s very early work as well as rare, custom-designed pieces from his later work. The joy of discovering the early pieces is gaining a unique understanding of Nakashima’s development and approach through time. The later pieces show his evolution to satisfy client desires while remaining true to his unique aesthetic sensibility.

About George Nakashima

Today, George Nakashima is world-renowned and internationally recognized as one of the most important members of the 20th-century design pantheon. Global demand for his work is consistently rising. As the availability dwindles and copies proliferate, how can you know if a piece of modern furniture is an authentic George Nakashima piece?

In this article, we share a few suggestions and recommend some resources to help you learn how to identify George Nakashima furniture.

1. Understand why an authentic George Nakashima never goes out of style.

His work is enduring and popular because:

• It fits into many different design styles, including Asian, Folk Art, Americana, Shaker, Mid-century, Contemporary, Rustic, and others.
• His furniture is considered art that adds another aesthetic dimension to spaces. For example, when contemporary fine art collectors want to complement their important and valuable art, they often choose Nakashima pieces for this purpose.
• Nakashima is one of the great innovators of 20th-century design, offering a unique approach. He combined traditional Japanese and American vernacular design styles with a modern sensibility based on the novel use of free edges, sapwood, knots, crotch figuring, natural flaws in the wood, revealed joinery, and butterfly joints. Nothing else like it had come before it.
• His appreciation of wood and respect for trees and nature is widely shared throughout the world. He saw his furniture as “the second life of the tree” and allowed the wood to “speak” for itself, taking his appreciation to a new level. Wood selection took a back seat to function until Nakashima chose to approach design from the point of view of the tree. His brilliance and talent fully emerged when he made functional art that celebrated nature. That alone led to an enduring Nakashima legacy.

2. Check for a signature.

As Nakashima’s work was about the story of the tree and the spirit that informed his work, he didn’t want to assert his ego by signing the work. Occasionally, he would agree to sign pieces for his best clients. However, in the 1980s, when he became aware of the number of copies of his work that were being made, he began to sign and date most of his pieces.

When the workshop began to get busy with orders in the 1950s, he started to mark the underside of most pieces with the name of the client – sometimes in red or yellow grease pencil. With his assistance, clients usually chose the boards he would use for their furniture. Therefore, it was important that Nakashima woodworkers knew which boards were for each client.

In 1955, he was given a prototype of the first permanent Magic Marker by the owner of the company so that he could sign his order. Nakashima continued to use black markers to preserve the name of the client on the piece, but rarely signed work until the 1980s.

His wife Miriam kept excellent records of most orders beginning 1951. This Nakashima Archive is now an invaluable resource for establishing authenticity. If the name of the client is on the piece, their order can usually be found in the archive. That is the only true way to establish authenticity.

After Nakashima’s death on June 15, 1990, orders for Nakashima pieces were produced under the supervision of the only designer he ever trained, his daughter, Mira Nakashima. At first she wasn’t sure of what to do about signing, so she just signed “Nakashima” with the date of completion. Shortly after that, she added “Mira” under “Nakashima,” and a bit later began to sign “Mira Nakashima.”

3. Butterfly joints are key.

George Nakashima is well known for developing the aesthetic use of the butterfly joint, which is characteristic of his design philosophy and aesthetic sensibility. A butterfly joint forms a strong, sturdy connection between two pieces of wood by using a third piece of wood shaped like a butterfly. This method stabilizes the wood construction from the effects of expansion. More importantly, it became a distinctive aesthetic aspect of Nakashima designs

4. Take note of the type of wood used in the piece.

Nakashima worked with a variety of woods, although he is known to prefer American Black Walnut and Cherry. Not only do black walnut and cherry trees grow in Pennsylvania, where his workshop is located, but the coloring and luster enhance the natural beauty of the wood’s grain, which is often central to many of Nakashima’s furniture designs.

5. Examine the piece for book-matched timber.

Nakashima frequently used timber boards that were cut sequentially from the same log. When the pieces are opened up side-by-side, the wood grain on one mirrors the other or is said to be book-matched.

Recommended Resources and Collectibles to Assist Nakashima Collectors

1. Nakashima Foundation for Peace

The Nakashima Foundation for Peace is the preeminent source of authentication and true replacement valuations of any pieces made by George Nakashima. Led by Mira Nakashima, co-owner of George Nakashima Woodworkers, the organization has a mission to maintain the architecture and the collection of furniture George Nakashima designed and built on his property in New Hope, PA. With access to detailed archives, the staff can research and locate the order records of any Nakashima piece made from the early 1950s to today.

2. Nakashima Process Book

Newly published in 2023, Nakashima Process Book gives readers a deeper understanding of what makes Nakashima unique. Get a detailed idea of the how and why of Nakashima’s approach to design, defined by the artist himself in the 1940s and influenced by strict craftsmanship and respect for wood.

3. The Soul of a Tree: A Master Woodworkers Reflections

This book offers very special insight into the man and his approach because Nakashima wrote it himself. It is said that reading it “evokes the joy of living in harmony with nature.”

4. Nature Form & Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima

Written by Mira Nakashima, this hardcover volume is an illustrated retrospective of the life and work of her father. Collectors can get a better understanding of Nakashima’s:

• Influence on contemporary design
• Work as an architect
• Outstanding craftsmanship
• Organic use of the natural lines and grain of wood

Moderne Gallery Appraisal Services

In 1985, Philadelphia-based Moderne Gallery presented a pioneering exhibition of the work of George Nakashima and continues to maintain the finest and largest selection of the designer’s 1940s-1980s designs in the U.S. Today, Moderne Gallery is one of the foremost, trusted George Nakashima dealers, selling to collectors and interior designers all over the world and building a global reputation for this work.

Moderne Gallery also provides insurance, sales, and estate appraisals for the work of George Nakashima and most other artists from the Studio Craft Movement, based on an established reputation as an authority with specialized knowledge of their work. Please click here to submit items for appraisal or contact us with any questions.

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