Object Details
- Exhibition Label
- The groundbreaking furniture of George Nakashima was included in the Renwick Gallery’s first exhibition, Woodenworks, in 1972. Nakashima trained as an architect at the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He discovered woodworking while incarcerated at the Minidoka Detention Center in southern Idaho, where he was forcibly detained during World War II as part of the federal government’s Executive Order 9066. Following his release, in 1943, he opened a furniture studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania. His artistic philosophy was simple: to maintain the beauty and goodness of a tree. This is an example of a conoid bench, a design first introduced in 1960, featuring the natural “free edge” of a black walnut tree.
- This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, 2022
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- George Nakashima, born Spokane, WA 1905-died New Hope, PA 1990
- Date
- 1977
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Warren D. Brill
- Medium
- black walnut and hickory
- Dimensions
- 31 1/8 x 84 1/2 x 35 5/8 in. (79.1 x 214.6 x 90.5 cm)
- Type
- Decorative Arts-Furniture
- Crafts
