The Soul of a Tree: A Master Woodworkers Reflections

About George Nakashima

GEORGE NAKASHIMA woodworker and architectural designer is a native of Seattle Washington. A graduate of MIT in architecture he worked briefly in New York then traveled to Paris Tokyo and India. It was while in Japan that he was sent on an extended architectural assignment to Pondicherry India where he designed Golconda the primary disciples' residence at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram which was his first major architectural project. Running a small integrated business near New Hope Pennsylvania since 1943 Mr. Nakashima's major commissions include furnishings for the country home of the late Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller Pocantico Hills in Tarrytown New York and interiors for Columbia University Mt. Holyoke College the International Paper Corporation and the Monastery of Christ in the Desert Abiquiu New Mexico for which he also provided the architectural design. Featured in such publications as Smithsonian Town & Country House Beautiful Life and Fine Woodworking Mr. Nakashima has exhibited at many institutions including the Museum of Modern Art New York; the Renwick Gallery Washington D.C.; the Nelson Gallery Kansas City; and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. He was awarded the Gold Medal for craftsmanship by the American Institute of Architects in 1952 was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1979 received the 1981 Hazlett Award and in 1989 will be the first honoree in a series of major retrospective exhibitions of America's Living National Treasures at the American Craft Museum.GEORGE WALD Higgins Professor of Biology Emeritus at Harvard University has been a close friend of George Nakashima for many years. He was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967 for his work on mechanisms of vision. He spends most of his time now in what he thinks of as survival politicsthe sharp struggle to preserve life upon this planet: human animal and plant.