George Nakashima was a man of the 20th century, and he pushed design forward as much as the century itself did. For nearly five decades, he livedin New Hope, creating furniture out of magnificent planks of wood, achieving an unparalleled career in the American crafts world. *In the introduction to his retrospective exhibition Full Circle, opened just a year before he died at the Museum of American Crafts, his colleague Sam Maloof, described Nakashima as "scholar, philosopher, writer, builder, designer, architect, woodworker – he is all of these things,” he wrote. “But the last is how George would want to be identified. He is truly the elder statesman of the American craft Movement." Nakashima took this role very seriously. To him, making furniture was more than just a job and far greater than cutting down planks of wood. It was his personal lifestyle that integrated love for nature, yoga practice, spiritual living, and crafting some of the most memorable pieces of furniture in the history of American design.