Why I Love...George Nakashima

Stash Gwiazda of Kolega on the conoid chair
"Nakashima designed the Conoid chair in 1959. It was the first thing to come out of his Conoid Studio, built from an open-plan design which was quite revolutionary at the time, and which gave him the inspiration to make things like the Conoid chair.

The chair itself has a sort of sentinel quality about it. It looks inviting and at the same time imposing and dominant, but also feminine.

Instead of having four legs like most chairs, it has just a pair of legs with skis on the bottom, with the seat cantilevered from the legs.

In Nakashima's work you have the marriage of a structural engineer's mind with artistic flair, and the craftsmanship to execute his ideas, and that's a very rare quality.

Free Form
"What appeals to me most about his work is the purity of the materials, and the concepts he used to interpret those materials into three-dimensional forms, to produce something with a long-lasting appeal.

He used materials as honestly as he could, allowing the beauty of the solid wood to show through, often working with big, heavy slabs of timber which he kept in free forms for some of his pieces.

Or, as with the Conoid chair, he used the intensity of the wood-grain in woods like English walnut, which has a deeper colour and a heavier figure than the American variety.

The Soul of a Tree

"I first came across the chair when I was reading A Cabinet Maker's Notebook by James Krenov, a craftsman and a contemporary of Nakashima's.

There was a reference to Nakashima's book The Soul of a Tree, in which he takes what he does and makes it into a philosophy; an art form, a way of life, and not just a means of income.

Nakashima had spent considerable time making an almost spiritual journey across the globe, getting inspiration from all around him, and that became food for his future work.

Nakashima's daughter Mira took over when he died in 1990, and the chair is still in production. They might not be made by the hand of George Nakashima himself, but the company he founded is still executing them with the same attention to detail that he used.

Aesthetic Value
"I wouldn't like to speculate on what the originals that come up at auction go for, and I'm not that interested in their value in a commercial sense.

The chair's value, to me, is in the aesthetic, the interpretation, the beauty of the materials Nakashima employs and his defiance of some of the conventional notions of what a chair is and how it functions.

What I see more than anything else are those aspects coming together in a synthesis, executed by Nakashima with the greatest clarity and truthfulness to his materials and to himself and his ideals.

The Conoid chair has all those elements, and it rings true to me. Hopefully it would, too, to anyone else who was able to take the time to observe it".

Sources

If you want to buy a vintage Nakashima Chair check out Rago Arts an American auction house with lots of examples.

See also Moderne Gallery, an American company specialising in vintage pieces.

If you want to buy a Nakashima piece from the company now run by his daughter Mira, visit Nakashima Woodworker

Kolega (Polish for friend) was launched last year at 100% Design by two brothers, Stash and Marek Gwiazda.

Their beautifully designed pieces are primarily fashioned from solid and veneered woods, but they also use rubber, fibre glass and stainless steel for function and contrast.

Their Celinka low coffee table, which has received rave reviews, manages to be simultaneously sculptural and free-flowing, a quality Stash identifies as one of the most attractive feature of Nakashima's chair.

You can buy one of their unique pieces from a small production run or commission a bespoke design. For more, visit Kolega

Claire Rigby

© Find A Property 2000-2007