James Krenov

James Krenov (October 31, 1920 – September 9, 2009) was a woodworker and studio furnituremaker.

Jim Krenov was born on October 31, 1920, in the village of Uelen, Siberia, the only child of Dimitri and Julia Krenov. He and his family left Russia the following year, and after some time in Shanghai, China, they moved to a remote village in Alaska, where his parents worked as teachers. They lived in Alaska for seven years. Jim remembered airplane drops of goods and supplies onto the snow for the villagers. In one of those bundles was a good steel jack-knife. "From the time I was 6, I was making my own toys with the jackknife," Jim told. "It was a joy to me that I could rely on my hands and my eyes to produce things." Eventually, the family moved to Seattle. Jim spent his teen years there, where he developed a love for the sea and began building model boats at first, graduating to sailboats before long. As a young man during World War II, Krenov served as a Russian interpreter for the military when Russian ships docked in Seattle. He also worked for a ship chandler and spent a great deal of time surrounded by boats. It influenced his aesthetic. He loved the lines of boats: “There's hardly a straight line on them, but there's harmony. People think right angles produce harmony, but they don't. They produce sleep," Krenov said.

In 1947 Jim and his mother moved to Europe. In Paris, in 1949, he met his future wife, Britta. They were married on March 2, 1951. Jim and Britta traveled together in Italy and France, and spent many summers in the mountains of Sweden where they liked to hike and he fished for trout in the mountain streams. Always a writer, Krenov published several articles and a novel chronicling these travels.

A friend in Sweden got Krenov a job building wooden architectural models for a restaurant designer; later Krenov got himself a spot at the design school run by Carl Malmsten, considered the father of Scandinavian furniture design. He attended the famous Malmsten school for two years and then struck out on his own, keeping a shop in his basement. Toiling anonymously for years, he gradually built a reputation for his simple design. Once established as a master woodworker, Krenov also began sharing his expertise. "Krenov really helped re-create an interest in fine woodworking that had largely died out by the 1950s," says Frank Ramsay, president of the Bay Area Woodworkers Association, "Such a change from the 'make a box, cover it with plywood and paint it' era of the 1960s." Over time, Krenov received numerous requests to document his design philosophy in book format. In 1976, Krenov’s first book, “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” was published. The positive response to that first book surprised Krenov, and he ended up writing four more books including a final book that showcased the work of his students,”With Wakened Hands.”

...
Wikipedia