George Nakashima, the internationally renowned American designer and architect, liked to describe himself as a simple woodworker. While his Modernist peers — Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus School, Charles and Ray Eames, Le Corbusier — were trying to make a virtue out of mass production, Nakashima was building things with his hands and rejecting the industrial age. Born in 1905 to austere Japanese parents in Spokane, Washington, Nakashima inherited their devotion to simplicity and directness. As he developed into a craftsman, he came to revile the outsized egos and showmanship of many leading American architects, and considered Frank Lloyd Wright a primary example of how not to live.

Nakashima’s work feels so elemental that it exists outside of time, as if his vision allowed him to create objects that are both painstakingly crafted and perfectly natural. His pieces are warmer than mid century Modernism, combining wood surfaces with live edges and methodical clean lines. His style is handmade and unfussy, yet sophisticated and precise.