Isamu Noguchi

Noguchi was born on November 17 at Los Angeles County Hospital, the only child of Léonie Gilmour and Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi.² His half-sister, Ailes Gilmour, was born to Léonie Gilmour on January 27, 1912.² Edward Rumely placed the young Noguchi with a minister in La Porte, Indiana, and later arranged an apprenticeship with sculptor Gutzon Borglum and funded premedical studies at Columbia University.²

In Paris from 1927 to 1928, he studied and worked in Constantin Brancusi's studio for six months, and met Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti.¹ While working in Gentilly, France, he studied with Mateo Hernandez and created abstract sculptures and gouache drawings.² He later studied traditional brush drawing under the painter Qi Baishi.²

Noguchi designed a costume for Ruth Page's dance The Expanding Universe, collaborating with his half-sister Ailes Gilmour.² According to The Noguchi Museum, in 1949–50 Noguchi traveled on a Bollingen Foundation fellowship to study sculpture's public role across Europe, Asia, and Japan.⁴ En route to Hiroshima in spring 1951, he witnessed a night of cormorant fishing in Gifu illuminated by paper lanterns, which inspired the Akari light sculptures.⁴

Noguchi described Akari as having its rationale in relation to people, noting that a young couple needed only a futon and an Akari to start life together.⁴ The Noguchi Museum reports that Akari retail prices appeared inflated compared to pseudo-lanterns because of import, shipping, material, and labor costs.⁴ According to The Noguchi Museum, “Distribution in the United States was folded into the Isamu Noguchi Foundation in the 1990s”.⁴

Noguchi designed a glass-and-wood table for Herman Miller in 1944 and the Cyclone table for Knoll in 1954.⁷ According to Architectural Digest, Noguchi intended people to climb on sculptures in his 1968 Octetra series.⁷ In Costa Mesa, California, Noguchi created the public artwork California Scenario, which the Japanese American National Museum describes as a sculptural portrait of the state, sited between skyscrapers and a parking structure.⁵

Floor Frame (1962) was installed in the White House Rose Garden under First Lady Melania Trump.⁸ The White House described the placement as allowing visitors to happen upon it, giving it a found quality.⁸

The Smithsonian American Art Museum organized the exhibition Isamu Noguchi, Archaic/Modern with the Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, exploring how ancient art shaped his vision.⁶ Columbia College's alumni publication described Noguchi as the preeminent American sculptor and noted his fusion of Asian aesthetics with Western modernism.³ According to Allan Temko, critic Allan Temko wrote in 1978 that Noguchi's output sprang from several distinct, refined selves.³

The Noguchi Museum was established in New York in 1985.¹ Noguchi died on December 30, 1988; he had said late in life, I have come to no conclusions, no beginnings, no endings.³ According to Architectural Digest, Collectors and dealers actively seek Akari lamps and vintage Noguchi works, indicating continuing market demand.⁷

According to Architectural Digest, the Noguchi Foundation staged an exhibition with White Cube gallery in London titled A New Nature, combining play equipment, galvanized steel sculptures, a 40-foot waterfall installation, and nearly 100 Akaris.⁷ Art critic John Haber reports that critics argue modernist design's accessibility goals can conflict with its commercialization as luxury goods.⁹ Haber also writes that Noguchi and Buckminster Fuller associated efficiency with lower costs and modular production, wanting designs available to anyone.⁹