Nature, form, & spirit : the life and legacy of George Nakashima
Title:
Nature, form, & spirit : the life and legacy of George Nakashima
Author:
Nakashima, Mira.
ISBN:
9780810945364
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
New York : Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Physical Description:
275 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 28 x 30 cm
Contents:
The Nakashima family -- Nakashima's youth -- Nakashima and the Bauhaus -- Life in Paris -- Nakashima and Le Corbusier -- Tokyo: the firm of Antonin Raymond -- The Mingei movement and the revival of folk art tradition -- Frank Lloyd Wright and the arts and crafts movement -- The way of tea -- Church at Karuizawa -- Nakashima and Sri Aurobindo -- Golconde -- The sources of spirituality in Nakashima's work -- From India to Bucks County -- Japanese roots of Nakashima's aesthetic -- The Shaker legacy -- Nakashima and Knoll studios -- Nakashima's catalogues -- Theory and practice -- The process of furniture-making -- Experiments in thin-shell technology: conoids, hypars, barrel vaults, and cantilevers -- Widdicomb-Mueller and Frenchman's Cove -- The conoid line -- Ben and Bernarda Shahn -- I go out into the world -- Nagare, Minguren and Ahmedabad -- Return to new hope -- The Rockefellers' Japanese house -- Sacred spaces, scissors trusses, and adobe -- Altars for peace -- Day's end -- Lean years -- Nakashima today.
Abstract:
"George Nakashima (1905-1990) is best known for his unique pieces of furniture, which are prized for their respect for the natural forms of the tree and the inherent grain of the wood. This remarkable creative spirit was also an architect, who designed a number of distinguished buildings during his career. Above all, he was a man committed to the integration of his life as an artist with the rhythms of the natural world. Working with his family and a crew of workmen in his studio, he left a rich legacy, not only the works of his extraordinary personal artistry, but a creative tradition that continues to flourish in the Nakashima Studio today. Told by Nakashima's daughter and colleague, the designer Mira Nakashima, this story of the artist's life examines not only the furniture and the architecture that he designed, but also the philosophical and spiritual underpinning of his work, his personal worldview, his quest for the integration of humanity and nature, and for world peace." "Lavishly illustrated with superb photographs of Nakashima's work, many taken expressly for this book, and with documentary photographs from the Nakashima archive, Nature, Form, and Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima is an insightful and beautiful evocation of the life, art, and world of one of America's outstanding designers."--Jacket.
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Electronic Access:
Table of contents http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip041/2003005146.html