"Geoffrey Diner Gallery from Washington, D.C., is one American dealer who gets it right. This is Diner Gallery’s first time at Maastricht. They specialize in the best Arts & Crafts and American Modernist furniture, so they brought rare, very high-end things by George Nakashima (1905–1990). European connoisseurs and collectors don’t know Nakashima well, but he’s an American original and, in our young country, one of our Old Masters, he’s been dead for only a bit more than 30 years. His Sanso dining-room table and chairs are from 1981 and were a private commission sold by the family for whom Nakashima made them. The book–matched walnut slabs are symphonic. Also at Diner’s is a buckeye maple-burl coffee table that’s craggy, all-muscle, and very American. It’s from 1982.
The Geoffrey Diner Gallery has done something that the best of the Old Masters dealers at Maastricht do — spent the year saving their best things and looking for fresh-to-the-market objects. Their booth is welcoming and comfortable, but also serious and heritage-focused. I believe they see their appearance at Maastricht as a career pinnacle, so they’re not thinking about Art Basel, Miami Basel, Frieze, or even TEFAF’s upcoming New York iteration."
