Mira Chair (Single Board Seat) | Single

George Nakashima
Mira Chair (Single Board Seat) | Single, 1985

Dimensions:
17 × 17.25 × 26.25 in (W x D x H)
43.18 x 43.82 x 66.68 cm

Material: American Black Walnut

Signed “George Nakashima July 20 1985”

An exceptional example of a Mira Chair by George Nakashima which features a single board seat of American black walnut. The Mira Chair was originally designed circa 1950 and named after Nakashima’s daughter, Mira.

Design: c. 1950

“The design for the Mira chair was one of the earliest produced by Nakashima in New Hope. The design itself was named for his daughter, Mira.

As do other early Nakashima designs, the Mira chairs reflect the profound influence that the vernacular form of the Windsor chair had upon his work. He revered that type of generic seating in which the maker used time and materials most efficiently. In addition, the Windsor chair did not depend upon sophisticated woodworking skills, and even today their makers are often anonymous. In Nakashima’s own seating pieces, such as the Straight-Backed Chair, Armchair, and New Chair, he recognized and drew from these qualities. The Mira Chair is a direct descendant of this interest and is the most original of such Nakashima designs. The amoebalike shape of its seat and its three-legged stance are not found in his other chairs. Both elements were part of the progressive form language of design from the 1930s until the 1950s. Hans Wegner, who produced a similar model in Denmark, may have known of Nakashima’s design, which was illustrated in a number of journals of the period” (‘George Nakashima Full Circle’, Derek E. Ostergard, 1989, p.148).

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.