Michener holds a pair of furniture exhibits

The James A. Michener Art Museum of Doylestown, Pa., has two major furniture exhibitions on display.

“Nakashima Looks: Studio Furniture at the Michener”, curated by Mira Nakashima, opened March 2 and will run through July 7. It includes pieces by Wharton Esherick, Harry Bertoia, Sam Maloof, and both generations of the Nakashima family.

A traveling exhibition, “The Art of Seating: Two Hundred Years of American Design”, showcases a private collection of over 40 chairs from the 1800s to today’s studio movement.

“Presenting two such remarkable exhibitions simultaneously gives the Michener a dynamic platform from which to explore, and expand upon, the role that the Bucks County region holds in the history of American design,” Kathleen V. Jameson, the museum’s executive director, said in a statement.

“The early 1900s were pivotal in establishing this region as one of the cultural hubs of the studio craft movement. Craftspeople like Frederick Harer, George Nakashima, Paul Evans, and Phillip Lloyd Powell brought international attention to the work being produced here. Nakashima Looks will shed new light on works in the Michener’s permanent collection, using them to both enhance and elucidate the history on display in The Art of Seating.”

The traveling exhibit, curated by Ben Thompson, deputy director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, will be on view through May 5. It features selections from the Jacobsen Collection of American Art and includes work by John Henry Belter, George Hunzinger, the Herter and Stickley brothers, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Isamu Noguchi and Frank Gehry.

For more, visit www.michenerartmuseum.org.

This article originally appeared in the April 2019 issue.