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Moderne Gallery

Art & Design from the 20th & 21st centuries | Authority on George Nakashima & The Studio Movement

05/08/2026

Ceramic works by Sergei Isupov on view as part of our latest exhibition Subconscious Surfaced.

Sergei Isupov occupies a prominent position in international contemporary ceramics, known for his extraordinary ability to marry three-dimensional sculpture with narrative painting. Born into a family of artists and educated across Ukraine and Estonia during the Soviet era, Isupov immigrated to the United States in 1994. His porcelain works, characterized by hand-built forms and intricate stain-and-glaze paintings, explore the complexities of the human psyche and the body. In light of recent geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine and Estonia, his work has taken on a renewed urgency, serving as a visceral, creative response to the anxieties of war and the fragility of peace.

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Subconscious Surfaced, a group exhibition featuring works from the 1960s through the early 2000s, explores a shared thread of surreal, otherworldly sculptural form across a range of expressions, techniques, and contexts.

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05/06/2026

A 1985 Special Walnut Stool by George Nakashima. The work features a biomorphic, free-edged top and three turned legs, all of expressive American Black Walnut.

Special Walnut Stool, 1985
American Black Walnut
21 1/4 x 17 1/4 x 12 in

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05/05/2026

NOW ON VIEW | Subconscious Surfaced

Moderne Gallery presents Subconscious Surfaced, a group exhibition featuring works from the 1960s through the early 2000s. The exhibition explores a shared thread of surreal, otherworldly sculptural form across a range of expressions, techniques, and contexts.

A number of works in the exhibition derive from the esteemed collection of Marc and Diane Grainer, renowned patrons, collectors, and champions of the arts, who assembled a singular collection over the course of more than forty-five years. We are proud to present these works and to serve as stewards as they find their way into new collections.

On view are works featuring figures, narratives, and compositions drawn from deep within the subconscious, emerging from a realm beyond the threshold of immediate awareness.

Through incongruous forms and psychologically charged imagery, the artists give material presence to subconscious visions, bringing into view what ordinarily remains beyond immediate perception. Situated between the imagined and the tangible, these works offer insight into psychological dimensions that exceed the limits of ordinary experience.

Featured artists:
 Ralph Bacerra Mark Burns Nancy Carman Michele Oka Doner Jack Earl Sergei Isupov Michael Lucero Louis Marak Beverly Mayeri Norma Minkowitz Sunkoo Yuh

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05/02/2026

A 1965 Bracket-Based Coffee Table/Bench by George Nakashima. The work features a single board top slab with dramatic figuring and expressive voids.

Mira Nakashima, on reflecting on the conceptual basis of the Slab style coffee table/bench, notes the works were “designed to express the character of a particular slab. Crotch figures, knots, rotted-out sections, and interesting profiles are used as expressions and not considered defects” (‘Nature, Form, and Spirit’, Mira Nakashima, 2003, p. 106).

Bracket-Based Coffee Table/Bench, 1965
American Black Walnut
47 1/2 x 23 3/4 x 13 in

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04/25/2026

A Conoid Lounge Chair by George Nakashima featuring a single board seat of American Black Walnut along with hand shaved Hickory spindles.

The Conoid Lounge Chair was first designed for Japanese architect Yukata Saito. The lounge iteration of the Conoid Chair features a lower stance and wider seat than its dining-style predecessor.

The Conoid Lounge Chair, like the Conoid Chair, features a formed, cantilevered seat, a sculptural crest rail, sled runners, and continuous leg/stiles.

Conoid Lounge Chair, 1983
American Black Walnut, Hickory
Signed “George Nakashima Aug 1983” on underside of seat | Made for Full Circle Gallery
22 x 24 x 33 in | Seat Height 14 in

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04/22/2026

“The New Chair was prominently featured in Nakashima’s 1955 catalogue, where it was introduced as a major addition to his gradually expanding line. Although very much in the manner of earlier designs indebted to the Windsor chair, the New Chair differed in several respects.

While its turned H-shaped stretcher is the most elaborate of Nakashima’s seating support systems, the overall design of the chair is among his most serene. Lacking the exuberant curvature used for the crest rail of the Armchair and Straight-Backed Chair, or the dramatic cantilever of the Conoid Chair, the New Chair became one of the firm’s most popular in the 1950s and afterward.

Nakashima’s respect for the inherent qualities of craftsman-made designs is evident in the New Chair. Hickory, the standard material used by Windsor chair makers of the eighteenth century, was suitable only for the spindles. They would never have used it for the shaped seats, which required a common wood, such as chestnut or sash, that would lend itself to carving. Nakashima followed the lead of these earlier woodworkers in his selection of walnut for the seat of the New Chair” (‘George Nakashima Full Circle’, Derek E. Ostergard, 1989, p.154).

New Chairs | Set of 8, 1980-81
American Black Walnut, Hickory
18 1/2 x 22 x 35 1/2 in (Seat Height - 17 in)

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04/16/2026

Subconscious Surfaced | Opening Reception | Friday, May 1, 2026 | 5 – 7 pm | RSVP in bio

Moderne Gallery presents “Subconscious Surfaced”, a group exhibition featuring works from the 1960s through the early 2000s. The exhibition explores a shared thread of surreal, otherworldly sculptural form across a range of expressions, techniques, and contexts.

A number of works in the exhibition derive from the esteemed collection of Marc and Diane Grainer, renowned patrons, collectors, and champions of the arts, who assembled a singular collection over the course of more than forty-five years. We are proud to present these works and to serve as stewards as they find their way into new collections.

On view are works featuring figures, narratives, and compositions drawn from deep within the subconscious, emerging from a realm beyond the threshold of immediate awareness.

Through incongruous forms and psychologically charged imagery, the artists give material presence to subconscious visions, bringing into view what ordinarily remains beyond immediate perception. Situated between the imagined and the tangible, these works offer insight into psychological dimensions that exceed the limits of ordinary experience.

Featured artists:
 Ralph Bacerra Mark Burns Nancy Carman Michele Oka Doner Jack Earl Sergei Isupov Michael Lucero Louis Marak Beverly Mayeri Norma Minkowitz Sunkoo Yuh

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04/11/2026

A 1980-81 Conoid Dining Table by George Nakashima. The table features free edges along its length, four Rosewood butterflies joining the two top American Black Walnut slabs, and the iconic Conoid Table base.

“The Conoid Dining Table reflects the same angle as the Chairs, with two heavy angled uprights lightened by a narrow waist, joined by a single rectangular stretcher on the floor and supported laterally by two sets of feet similar to the Conoid Chairs. Because of its sculptural simplicity, it effectively sets off the large, heavy, single-board plank table-tops that become available during this time and thereafter” (‘Nature, Form, and Spirit’, Mira Nakashima, 2003, p. 174).

7ft Conoid Dining Table, 1980-81
American Black Walnut
84 x 42 3/4 x 28 1/2 in

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04/04/2026

American studio craft master Judy Kensley McKie’s Wagging Dog Chair is an exceptional examples of the artist’s signature zoomorphic furniture design. Carved from mahogany, the work’s form blurs the line between furniture and sculpture demonstrating a playful interpretation of a dog’s form including intricate, carved textural detailing and an extended palm-like tail, serving as the chair’s backrest and titular feature.

“I remember I would sit in the living room and look at our own furniture, which was all very straightforward. Look at it for a long time, the way you might look at clouds in the sky. As I looked I saw the armrests starting to turn into animals, or I would see that a table had a stance that was like a four-legged creature, and I would think, that would be one way of bringing this stuff to life. I started looking carefully at a lot of animal forms, looking at a lot of primitive but incorporated animal imagery. The honesty of it and aliveness in primitive forms always appealed to me, so I wanted to get something of that into my work” (‘Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft’, David Savage, 2011, p. 93).

Wagging Dog Chair, 2006
Carved signature/date/edition: “© JKM ‘06 1/2”
Mahogany
17 3/4 x 24 x 36 1/2 in | Seat Height 18 1/4 in
Edition 1 of 2

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04/01/2026

A 1972 Headboard by legendary Studio Craft master and educator Daniel Jackson. Made from highly figured Curly Maple, the work’s sculptural form unfolds across the entire headboard encompassing numerous peaks, valleys, and curvilinear expressions.

Additionally, at the center point of the bottom of the headboard, a concealed hiding mechanism is incorporated. The cylindrical mechanism, which inserts vertically into a hollowed-out space in the headboard, rotates and locks in via a wooden pin.

Summing up his approach to design, Jackson said: “There is not a great difference between the two (sculpture and furniture). Furniture must fill a specific function. Then it can go on to be aesthetic. Sculpture is purely aesthetic from the beginning. What I am trying to do is marry the two.”

Headboard (Breast Shape), 1972
Curly Maple
62 1/2 x 3 x 18 1/2 in

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