Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most
important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of
artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and
lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, and set designs. His work, at
once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for
the reintegration of the arts.
Noguchi, an internationalist, traveled extensively throughout his
life. (In his later years he maintained studios both in Japan and New
York.) He discovered the impact of large-scale public works in Mexico,
earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush
techniques in China, and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated
all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of
materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsawood,
bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite, and water.
Born in Los Angeles, California, to an American mother and a Japanese
father, Noguchi lived in Japan until the age of thirteen, when he moved
to Indiana. While studying pre-medicine at Columbia University, he
took evening sculpture classes on New York’s Lower East Side, mentoring
with the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. He soon left the University to become
an academic sculptor.
In 1926 Noguchi saw an exhibition in New York of the work of
Constantin Brancusi’s that profoundly changed his artistic direction.
With a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Noguchi went to Paris, and from
1927 to 1929 worked in Brancusi’s studio. Inspired by the older
artist’s reductive forms, Noguchi turned to modernism and a kind of
abstraction, infusing his highly finished pieces with a lyrical and
emotional expressiveness, and with an aura of mystery.
