George Nakashima
“New” Lounge Chair with Free-form Arm, 1970
Material: American Black Walnut, Hickory
A “New” Lounge Chair with Free-form Arm by George Nakashima. Featuring on expressive, free edge arm on the right-hand side, the work showcases the evolution of Nakashima’s earlier 1955 “New Chair” design.
Design c. 1962
“In the 1950s, as materials became more available to the woodworker and as he grew more confident of his design abilities, a fresh creativity entered his work. Nonetheless, consistent with his overall philosophy, this outburst of design work was not characterized by designs dramatically different from earlier work. The new designs were respectful of those that had come before them. For example, the protrudent arm of this piece relates to early nineteenth-century Windsor types of chair that were fitted out as desks, with storage units built into cases beneath the arms.
The organic naturalism of Nakashima’s designs often imparted a zoomorphic aspect to his work, evident here in the chair’s resemblance to a fiddler crab. Although Nakashima’s design certainly owes a great deal to the writing Windsor, the free edge of its arm makes its zoomorphic quality more pronounced than that earlier design” (‘George Nakashima Full Circle’, Derek E. Ostergard, 1989, p.161).
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.
| Dimensions | 25 × 21 × 38.5 in |
|---|---|
| Artist | |
| Date | 1970 |
| Material | American black walnut, Hickory |
| Style |
