Isamu noguchi Biography

Isamu Noguchi

(Los Angeles, 1904-New York, 1988) American sculptor and designer whose works are representative of the expressive power of organic abstract works developed by 20th century American sculpture.

Isamu Noguchi

Son of the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi, his training was broad and cosmopolitan.He studied at Columbia University and, after residing for a few years in Japan, he moved to New York, where he continued his training with Onorio Ruotolo.During 1923 he traveled through England, China and Mexico, and later moved to Paris, where he was Constantin Brancusi's assistant for two years, between 1927 and 1928.There he met and related to sculptors such as Alberto Giacometti and Alexander Calder and developed a enthusiastic abstract sculpture.It was also influenced by surrealism and the work of Picasso and Joan Miró.

His first exhibition was held in 1929 in New York.In 1938 he won the national competition to decorate the Associated Press pavilion at New York's Rockefeller Center with a huge stainless steel sculpture, a work that established him as an important sculptor.During World War II, he voluntarily entered a Californian camp for Japanese-American citizens.

In his early terracotta and stone works, Noguchi captured a part of the mystery and spirit of primitive art, mainly of Japanese fired clay works, which he studied and learned with the Japanese potter Uno Jinmatsu during a trip to Japan between 1930 and 1931.Noguchi, trained in medicine at Columbia University, intuited the interrelation that exists between bones and rocks, worrying about what he called the comparative anatomy of existence, which he captured in his work Kouros (1945), preserved in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.This work, made of marble, is an abstract interpretation of Greek sculpture.In 1949, on another trip to Japan, he felt the attraction of the stone itself, an important step in his aesthetic development.The importance that contact with nature had for the artist is evident in the ceiling of his studio.

Much of his work, such as Pájaro C (MU) , made between 1952 and 1958, develops elegant abstract forms that are surrounded by highly polished stones.In works such as Euripides (1966) he uses massive blocks of stone brutally drilled with a gouge and a hammer.Recognizing the importance of bringing sculpture closer to architecture, in his first years of work he had created a work in low relief for the Associated Press building in New York (1938); In this connection with architecture, he designed a fountain in the Ford Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939.He also carried out important works to restructure the aesthetics of the urban environment.His garden for the UNESCO building in Paris, 1958, his vacation spot in Hawaii, his furniture designs or the fountain in the Plaza of the Civic Center of Detroit received international recognition.

In all these projects he played with large outdoor sculptures, spaces designed according to the aesthetic principles of Japanese gardens, in which large abstract sculptures are arranged in predetermined places to achieve a balance between them, spaces or gardens that integrate them and the architecture that surrounds them.

Noguchi also designed sculptural gardens: the Water Garden of the Chase Manhattan Bank and that of the John Hancock Building (both in New York), the Billy Rose Art Garden (1965) in Jerusalem and the plaza of the Japanese district of Los Angeles.He also created stage sets and costumes for dancers Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Merce Cunningham.In 1982 he was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal for his contribution to the arts.In 1985 Noguchi opened the Isamu Noguchi Museum-Garden on Long Island, which features some 500 outdoor sculptures, models, and photographs.