George Nakashima is a name that surfaces whenever American studio furniture, mid-century craft, or the phrase "the soul of a tree" enters the conversation. Yet one of the more intriguing threads in his long career runs through an unlikely partner: International Paper Company. A global manufacturer of paper and packaging products commissioning a hand-tool woodworker to furnish its offices sounds like a contradiction on paper, and that is precisely what makes the story worth telling.
The relationship between George Nakashima and International Paper Company sits at the intersection of postwar corporate ambition and the American craft revival. It shows how a Fortune 500 boardroom and a workshop in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, could share a common language, one built on patience, grain, and the belief that a great tree deserves a second life rather than a short trip to the chipper.
Who Was George Nakashima?
George Katsutoshi Nakashima was born in 1905 in Spokane, Washington, to Japanese immigrant parents, and he grew up around the timber country of the Pacific Northwest. That landscape, with its old-growth Douglas fir, cedar, and walnut, left a permanent mark on how he thought about material. He did not simply see lumber in a tree; he saw a living record of weather, time, and place.
By the time of his death in 1990 at his home and workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Nakashima had become one of the most influential furniture makers of the twentieth century. His work sits in major museum collections, his studio still operates under family stewardship, and his signature free-edge tables continue to command extraordinary prices at auction. The arc from architectural student to interned citizen to celebrated craftsman is a distinctly American story.
From MIT Architecture to a Woodworker's Bench
Nakashima studied architecture at the University of Washington and then earned a master's degree in architecture from MIT in 1931. He traveled to Europe and then to Japan, where he worked in the Tokyo office of architect Antonin Raymond. That period immersed him in Japanese building traditions, joinery, and an aesthetic of restraint that would later define his furniture.
He continued with Raymond's practice in India, where he spent several years at the Sri Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry and contributed to the design of the Golconde dormitory. It was in India, somewhat unexpectedly, that furniture making moved to the center of his life. When he returned to the United States in 1940 and settled in Seattle, he was already thinking less like a stylist and more like a builder.
Minidoka, Mentorship, and the Move to New Hope
In 1942, following Executive Order 9066, Nakashima, his wife Marion, and their infant daughter were forcibly relocated and interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. The experience was devastating, but it also produced one of the most consequential encounters of his life. At Minidoka he met Gentaro Hikogawa, a Japanese-trained master carpenter, who taught him the disciplined use of hand tools, traditional joinery, and an almost reverent approach to wood selection.
Released in 1943 with sponsorship from Antonin Raymond, Nakashima relocated to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he worked on a farm and gradually rebuilt his practice. He opened his own studio in 1946, and in 1957 he raised the Conoid Studio, a striking concrete structure whose conoid roof became part of the Nakashima legend. From that property he ran a workshop, a home, and eventually a family business.
The International Paper Company Connection
Corporate America in the postwar decades was unusually receptive to artist-designed environments. Companies wanted headquarters that communicated taste, permanence, and confidence, and designers were frequently brought in to shape boardrooms, executive suites, and reception areas. Within that climate, International Paper Company turned to George Nakashima, an arrangement that is documented in the studio's project records and remembered within the Nakashima family's history of commissions.
The pairing carried a certain irony that both sides seem to have appreciated. A company whose business depended on harvesting trees was asking a woodworker to celebrate the same raw material at its most refined. Rather than hiding the origin of the material behind veneer and lacquer, Nakashima let it remain visible in the grain, the knots, and the natural edges of the boards.
Why a Paper Giant Turned to Handmade Furniture
International Paper Company was, and remains, one of the largest paper and packaging enterprises in the world, and its mid-century identity was tied directly to forestry. Commissioning solid-wood furniture from a craftsman of Nakashima's reputation allowed the company to present its relationship with trees as one of stewardship and respect rather than mere extraction. It was branding, yes, but of an unusually thoughtful kind.
There were practical reasons as well. Nakashima's workshop could produce large conference tables sized precisely to a room, built from thick slabs and joined to last for generations. A company that thought in decades found that proposition appealing. Custom furniture also allowed an executive floor to avoid the interchangeable look of catalog office suites that were becoming common across corporate America.
What the Commission Meant for Nakashima's Career
Commissions from major corporations, International Paper Company among them, gave Nakashima something his studio badly needed in the 1950s and 1960s: financial stability and visibility far beyond the craft world. Institutional clients paid reliably, ordered in volume, and placed his work in front of executives who then commissioned pieces for their own homes. Word of mouth in that network was worth more than any advertisement.
Pieces made for corporate clients also circulate in the secondary market today, and provenance from a named company commission tends to strengthen interest among collectors. Desks, conference tables, and seating executed for offices carry the same joinery and material discipline as residential work, which is why serious buyers treat them as part of the same body of design rather than as a separate commercial category.
Craft, Philosophy, and the Enduring Legacy
Nakashima's furniture is recognizable at a glance: thick slabs with live edges, butterfly or dovetail keys holding a natural split together, and a visible honesty about how the wood was cut. He spoke of giving a tree a second life and of searching for the right board for each project, sometimes waiting years for the correct log to arrive at the mill.
His book, The Soul of a Tree, published in 1981, laid out that philosophy for a general audience and became a touchstone for the modern woodworking movement. The vocabulary he popularized, including the Minguren and Conoid forms, is now standard reference material for dealers, collectors, and makers alike.
The Studio and the Family Legacy
After George Nakashima's death in 1990, his daughter Mira Nakashima took over the studio and continued producing work based on her father's designs while developing pieces of her own. His son Kevin has also been involved in the family's woodworking enterprise over the years. The New Hope property, with its workshop, showroom, and Conoid Studio, remains an active site of production rather than a preserved relic.
That continuity matters. A client commissioning a table today is purchasing from the same lineage, using the same milling practices and the same logic of matching a board to a purpose. Waiting lists are long, sometimes measured in years, and the studio continues to work primarily from solid American black walnut and other domestically sourced hardwoods.
Collecting Nakashima Furniture Today
The market for Nakashima's work has matured dramatically. Important tables, benches, and case pieces regularly sell at auction for six figures, and rare or historically significant examples have approached or exceeded the million-dollar mark. Corporate provenance, including pieces tied to major companies, is one of the factors that can distinguish a strong example from a merely average one.
Buyers should pay attention to condition before anything else. Look for original finishes, evidence of thoughtful repairs, and documentation such as invoices, letters, or studio records. Restrained restoration is acceptable and often necessary; heavy refinishing or replaced structural elements can undermine both the integrity of the piece and its value.
For anyone curious about how American design learned to respect its own raw materials, the thread running from a Bucks County workshop to a corporate boardroom is a useful place to start. The furniture that once filled those offices has since scattered into homes, galleries, and museum vaults, where it keeps making the same quiet argument: that a well-made object outlives the company that ordered it, and that a tree treated with care can go on working for a very long time.