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Isamu Noguchi (野口勇, Noguchi Isamu, November 17, 1904 - December 30, 1988) was a prominent Japanese-American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Though known widely for his sculptures and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, as well as several mass-produced objects such as lamps and furniture, some of which are still manufactured and sold. Among his furniture work was his collaboration with the Herman Miller company in 1948 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. His work lives on around the world and at the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in New York City.

Biography

Early life

Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles on November 17, 1904, the illegitimate son of an American writer, Leonie Gilmour, and a Japanese poet, Noguchi Yonejiro, who at the time of Noguchi's birth was living at his home in Tokyo. In 1906, he moved with his mother to join his father in Japan, where he spent the rest of his childhood. Noguchi first lived in Tokyo; following his parents' separation, he and his mother moved to Omori in 1910, then to Chigasaki in 1912, where Isamu's half-sister Ailes Gilmour (known today as an early pioneer of the American Modern Dance movement) was born later that year. In 1916, Noguchi was sent to Saint Joseph's College in Yokohama, a French Jesuit school; the next year, his mother and sister moved to Yokohama.

In 1918, Noguchi was sent to the United States for schooling. He first attended Interlaken, a progressive school located near Silver Lake, Indiana, for one summer, after which the pressures of World War I resulted in its conversion to a motor truck training ground. For months afterward, he lived in a deserted faculty building with two caretakers, continuing his education at a school in Rolling Prairie, until he was discovered by Interlaken's founder, Dr. Edward Rumely. After bringing him to La Porte, Rumely helped Noguchi find boarding with Samuel Mack, a minister of the New Church. Noguchi began attending La Porte High School, graduating in 1922.

Early artistic career

After high school, Noguchi explained his desire to become an artist to Rumely; though he preferred that Noguchi become a doctor, he acknowledged Noguchi's request and sent him to Connecticut to work as an apprentice to his friend Gutzon Borglum. Best known as the creator of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Borglum was at the time working on a huge set of equestrian sculptures. As his apprentice, Noguchi found little time to train as an artist, instead performing such tasks as arranging horses, gathering firewood, and at one point posing for the monument as General Sherman. After some time, Borglum told Noguchi that he would never become a sculptor, prompting him to reconsider Rumley's suggestion.

As a result, he then traveled to New York and with Rumely's financial aid, enrolled in the fall of 1922 as a student of medicine at Columbia University. While at Columbia, Noguchi met the bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi, who explained to him that he might not be meant to become a doctor, and urged him to reconsider art. Another influence on Noguchi was his mother Leonie, who in 1923 moved from Japan to California, then in 1924 to New York. While still enrolled at Columbia, Noguchi followed his mother's advice to take night classes at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. The school's head, Onorio Ruotolo, was impressed by Noguchi's work and allowed him his first exhibition three months later.

That year, Noguchi dropped out of Columbia University to pursue sculpture full-time, changing his name from Gilmour (the surname he had used for years) to Noguchi. In Paris, he became Brancusi's personal assistant for several months. In the ensuing years he gained in prominence and acclaim, leaving his large-scale works in many of the world's major cities.

Notable works by Noguchi

A bridge in Hiroshima's Peace Park
Sculpture for First National City Bank Building in Fort Worth, Texas
Sunken Garden for Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut
Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Sunken Garden for Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza in New York, New York
Gardens for the IBM headquarters in Armonk, New York
Kodomo no Kuni, a children's playground in Yokohama, Japan
The "Portal" sculpture located on the east plaza of the Justice Center Complex in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dodge Fountain and Philip A. Hart Plaza in Detroit, Michigan (created in collaboration with Shoji Sadao)
Bayfront Park, Miami, Florida, 1980-1990
The sculpture Black Sun in Seattle, Washington's Volunteer Park
California Scenario in Costa Mesa, California 1980-1982
Bolt of Lightning... in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

His final project was the design of a 400 acre (1.6 km²) park for Sapporo, Japan. Designed in 1988 shortly before his death, Moerenuma Park is almost completed and already open to the public as of 2004.

References

Noguchi, Isamu (2004). A Sculptor's World. Steidl Publishing. ISBN 388243970X.