Isamu Noguchi

1904–1988

Over the course of his prolific, six-decade career, Isamu Noguchi explored nearly every available mode of art making. He produced drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and photographs, but also designed stage sets, playgrounds, furniture, and garden landscapes. In 1944 Noguchi began constructing a series of abstract sculptures comprised of flat, interlocking components. His encounter with the organic shapes (or “biomorphs”) that Surrealist artists were using to visually evoke dream states and the unconscious influenced his embrace of these curved, subtly anthropomorphic forms.

Noguchi developed a step-by- step process that involved drawing, model making, collage, and enlargement to create his sculptures. Work Sheets for Sculpture demonstrates a preliminary stage of this process. Noguchi first sketched shapes suggestive of bones and boomerangs on black paper, cut them out, and then arranged them into small models. This technique allowed the artist to test the configurations’ stability and make any adjustments prior to executing the final structures. He then mounted the excised graph paper, which he used to calculate the measurements required for enlarging and transferring elements, onto slabs of slate, marble, or wood. For Humpty Dumpty, Noguchi selected ribbon slate and combined the five interlocking units into an upright, freestanding sculpture. Instead of affixing the pieces with adhesive, dowels, or pins, he manipulated properties of balance and gravity. While one segment hangs, another offers crucial support. The result suggests a state of precariousness; removing even one element risks inciting collapse. The work’s title underscores the sculpture’s fragility: it invokes the familiar children’s nursery rhyme of the same name, in which “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men / couldn’t put Humpty together again.” Noguchi’s interpenetrating sculptures—made in the years during and following World War II—offer a potent reminder of humanity’s delicate interconnectedness.

Wikipedia entry

Introduction

Isamu Noguchi (野口勇, Noguchi Isamu, English: ; November 17, 1904 – December 30, 1988) was an American artist, furniture designer and landscape architect whose career spanned six decades from the 1920s. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.

In 1947, Noguchi began a collaboration with the Herman Miller company, when he joined with George Nelson, Paul László and Charles Eames to produce a catalog containing what is often considered to be the most influential body of modern furniture ever produced, including the iconic Noguchi table which remains in production today. His work is displayed at the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in New York City.

Wikidata identifier

Q442628

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Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 10, 2025.

Getty record

Introduction

Modernist sculptor and designer was born in Los Angeles to Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet and teacher, and Leonie Gilmore, an American novelist. His early years (1906-1918) were spent in Japan. He attended high school in Indiana. After high school he worked briefly for the American sculptor Gutzon Borglum and later studied in Paris (1927-1928) where he met Calder, Giacometti, and Brancusi, in whose studio he worked for six months. He traveled frequently and spent time in New York, London, Beijing, (post-war) Japan, and Mexico. He worked as a portraitist and decorator during the war years, and from 1935 began designing sets for the stage, most notably for Martha Graham. He worked primarily as a sculptor, but created designs for parks, monuments, playgrounds, fountains, and gardens. His designs for furniture and lighting (akari) remain in production.

Country of birth

United States

Roles

Artist, designer, environmental designer, furniture designer, garden designer, interior designer, landscape architect, sculptor

ULAN identifier

500008602

Names

Isamu Noguchi, ノグチイサム, 野口イサム

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Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 10, 2025.

Not on view

First acquired
1931

Date of birth
November 17, 1904

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