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去年からボクの頭をベンシャーンが駆け抜ける。
どうしても目にとまる。
今日は朝からベンシャーンが頭をグルグルするので
「分かりましたよ、見に行きますよ」とばかり
独り言を云ったぐらいだ。
しかし仕事場へ着き
(なぜ行かなければ行けないんだ)と再び疑問。
行けと言われると足が遠のく天邪鬼。
そこへ桜さんからダイレクトメール。
「ベンシャーン展」
さすがに膝打ちして
そうかベンシャーンってあのベンシャーンかと。
手術を終えてから思わず銀座のMITSUCOさんに電話したくなった。
思えばナカシマフリークを公言してやまない身としては、あまりにも無知を露呈したわけだが。

ホノルルでのタカエズトシコ女史の展覧会も思えばナカシマさんからの享受だったように思える。
あのナカシマさんの手を描いたのがベンシャーンだったことは知っていたが
原爆のベンシャーンと同人物であったとは。
MITSUCOさんから
「MIRAさんの本にもベンシャーンの絵が数点掛けられているんですよ」と。
すっかり見落としておりました。

原子力が抱える人類規模の問題を、50年前、静かに告発した画家がいた。20世紀 アメリカを代表する画家ベン・シャーン(1898〜1969)。 彼の晩年の代表作が、1954 年の第五福竜丸被爆の事件をテーマにした「ラッキー・ドラゴン」シリーズ(1960)である 。

George Nakashima, a native of Spokane, trained as an architect at the University of Washington (BA) and MIT (MA). He traveled the world during the 1930s pursuing his career, and in 1941, began designing and building furniture in Seattle. In 1943, following his internment as a person of Japanese ancestry, he settled in New Hope, Pennsylvania where he established his studio. It is now operated by his daughter, architect and designer Mira Nakashima-Yarnall.

George Nakashima's commissions included furnishings for the late Nelson Rockefeller and interiors for Columbia University, Mount Holyoke College and the International Paper Corporation. He had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Nelson Atkins Gallery, Kansas City; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Nakashima was honored with the Gold Medal of Craftsmanship by the American Institute of Architects (1952), named a fellow of the American Craft Council (1979) and received the Hazlett Award from the State of Pennsylvania for outstanding crafts achievement (1981). In 1983, he received the Third Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor and Japanese government bestowed on him by the Japanese Foreign Office, and in 1989 his was the first in a series of America’s Living National Treasures exhibitions at the American Craft Museum in New York.

The author of the classic book The Soul of a Tree, George Nakashima established The Nakashima Foundation for Peace, creating peace tables — symbols of human desire to achieve a more peaceful environment — to be installed throughout the world. Currently, they are found in New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the City of Human Unity in Auroville, India and the Russian Academy of Art in Moscow.

Three videotapes played continuously throughout the run of the exhibition in the adjacent Multi-Media Education Center: “George Nakashima: Reflections of a Woodworker,” “Mira Nakashima: Nakashima Reading Room” and a preview of a film being produced by John Nakashima: “George Nakashima Woodworker.”