One-Armed Rocking Chair by George Nakashima, 1978
View Similar Items
One-Armed Rocking Chair by George Nakashima, 1978
About the Item
- Creator:George Nakashima (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 34 in (86.36 cm)Width: 32.5 in (82.55 cm)Depth: 34 in (86.36 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1978
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use. Area of scratching to seat at right-facing front seat corner.
- Seller Location:Los Angeles, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU148423126052
George Nakashima
A master woodworker and M.I.T.-trained architect, George Nakashima was the leading light of the American Studio furniture movement. Along with Wharton Esherick, Sam Maloof and Wendell Castle, Nakashima was an artisan who disdained industrial methods and materials in favor of a personal, craft-based approach to the design. What sets Nakashima apart is the poetic style of his work, his reverence for wood and the belief that his furniture could evince — as he put it in the title of his 1981 memoir — The Soul of a Tree.
Born in Spokane, Washington, to Japanese immigrants, Nakashima traveled widely after college, working and studying in Paris, Japan and India, and at every stop he absorbed both modernist and traditional design influences. The turning point in Nakashima’s career development came in the United States in 1942, when he was placed in an internment camp for Asian-Americans in Idaho. There, Nakashima met a master woodcarver who tutored him in Japanese crafting techniques. A former employer won Nakashima’s release and brought him to bucolic New Hope, Pennsylvania, where Nakashima set up a studio and worked for the rest of his life.
Nakashima’s singular aesthetic is best captured in his custom-made tables and benches — pieces that show off the grain, burls and whorls in a plank of wood. He left the “free edge,” or natural contour, of the slab un-planed, and reinforced fissures in the wood with “butterfly” joints. Almost all Nakashima seating pieces have smooth, milled edges. Nakashima also contracted with large-scale manufacturers to produce carefully supervised editions of his designs. Knoll has offered his Straight chair — a modern take on the spindle-backed Windsor chair — since 1946; the now-defunct firm Widdicomb-Mueller issued the Shaker-inspired Origins collection in the 1950s.
Nelson Rockefeller in 1973 gave Nakashima his single largest commission: a 200-piece suite for his suburban New York estate. Today, Nakashima furniture is collected by both the staid and the fashionable: his work sits in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in the homes of Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, Diane von Furstenberg and the late Steve Jobs.
- Rocking Chair by Mira NakashimaBy Mira NakashimaLocated in Dallas, TXA rocking chair in black walnut made be the Nakashima studio and signed / dated by Mira Nakashima, 1993.Category
1990s Rocking Chairs
MaterialsWalnut
- Egg Rocking Chair by Josef HoffmannBy Josef Hoffmann, Antonio VolpeLocated in Piacenza, ItalyRare No. 267 egg rocking chair designed by Josef Hoffmann in 1922 and produced in a limited run by Societa Anonima Antonio Volpe in Udine, Italy circ...Category
Vintage 1980s Mid-Century Modern Rocking Chairs
MaterialsWood
$8,355 Sale Price20% Off - George Nakashima Slab-Arm RockerBy George NakashimaLocated in West Palm Beach, FLA fine example of this form. The family requested an extra wide slab -arm. Signed with the clients name.Category
Vintage 1960s American Rocking Chairs
MaterialsWood
- Shepherd's Rocking ChairLocated in Vancouver, BCHinterland's reimagined Shepherd's Chair is the culmination of years of design and prototyping. Inspired by the close relationship between a traditional herders tools, animals and th...Category
2010s Canadian Modern Rocking Chairs
MaterialsLeather, Ash, Wood, Upholstery, Sheepskin
$5,550 / item - Contemporary Clay Low Rocking Chair by Maarten BaasBy Maarten BaasLocated in Warsaw, PLThese vibrant Rocking chairs are from Maarten Baas’s iconic ‘Clay’ collection launched in 2006. The idiosyncratic childishness of this collection is created through Baas’s individual...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Dutch Modern Rocking Chairs
MaterialsMetal
$18,297 / item - A MID-CENTURY-MODERN FREE-FORM ROCKING-CHAIR in G. NAKASHIMA style, France 1950By George NakashimaLocated in PARIS, FRAn elegant rocking chair with generous lines, Modernist, Free Form, Reconstruction, of Dansk, Scandinavian inspiration, in carved solid light wood, sometimes attributed to and certai...Category
Vintage 1950s French Mid-Century Modern Rocking Chairs
MaterialsWood