Summary

Isamu Noguchi, (野口 勇 Noguchi Isamu?) (Los Angeles, November 17, 1904 - New York, December 30, 1988), was a Japanese-born American sculptor, architect, designer, and stage designer.

illegitimate son of Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet, and Léonie Gilmour, an American writer who edited some editions of many of Yone Noguchi's own works. The latter, however, shortly after Isamu's birth decided to sever his relationship with Gilmour, intending to marry a Washington Post reporter, Ethel Armes; he later learned of Léonie and their son, and so Yone's latter relationship also failed within a few months, by which time he had already returned to Japan and was waiting to marry her. At this point he decided to return with Gilmour, inviting her to live there with him with their son; she initially declined, only to reconsider the invitation and leave, in 1907, for Tokyo. Only upon their arrival was, finally, the child given the name Isamu (勇, "courage"). However, in the meantime Yone had found a wife in Japan, so he was mostly absent in Isamu's childhood. After yet another separation, the two moved several times to the Land of the Rising Sun, until in 1912, in Chigasaki, his sister Ailes Gilmour was born to an unknown father, destined to become one of the most important American dancers of the 20th century.

In 1918 Isamu, returned to the U.S., more specifically to Indiana, to study at Rolling Prairie; he then transferred to La Porte High School, graduating in 1922. He became assistant principal of the Leonardo da Vinci School in New York, and his interests began to turn toward sculpture, so much so that, in 1927, he won a grant from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which took him to Paris for two years to study with Constantin Brâncuși. After this experience, he traveled to China and Japan studying the "art" of Zen gardens and experimenting with ceramics and calligraphic drawing. He exhibited for the first time in New York in 1928 and again in Japan in 1930; however, his first major commission did not come until 1936, the year in which his History of Mexico was erected in Mexico City, a colored concrete wall also depicting in relief some of the most important symbols of modern history (from the Nazi swastika, to the equation E=mc²). Beginning in 1935, he collaborated several times with American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham on sets for her creations. In Mexico in the 1940s, he was a guest of his friend Wolfgang Paalen, with whom he shared an interest in the ancient Olmec civilization.

In 1968, on the occasion of the 11th Festival of the Two Worlds, in the wake of the success of Sculptures in the City, an open-air exhibition in Spoleto, he wanted to offer the city one of his proposals by entrusting architects Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao with the realization of one of his projects,Octetra, a children's play and at the same time a work of art, made of concrete painted red. During his lifetime he would receive numerous awards, to name a few: first prize at the Art Institute of Chicago (1959), honorary degree from Indiana University (a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Architectural League of New York. In 1985 the Noguchi Museum was opened on Long Island, a room was dedicated to him at the Venice Biennale in 1986, and in 1988, the year of his death, he was awarded the third order of the sacred treasure by the Japanese government.

Noguchi matured his work first of all by starting with materials; initially for his sculptures (of a strong formal simplicity), he used only metal, but, during the war period, he expanded his boundaries by sometimes ranging into unusual materials such as stone, wood and bone. The turning point, however, came after the war, when, having come into contact with Ikebana, his, already present, interest in Zen gardens grew; hence, his openness to monumental art.

In fact, back in the U.S., he undertook "naturalistic" experimentation, and in the years to come he would become world-renowned for his designs for public spaces (he would also be commissioned to design the Garden of Peace, for the headquarters, in Paris, of UNESCO). He made his mark on the international art scene, including as a set designer, staging the premiere of Stravinsky's Orpheus and working with companies such as, for example, Martha Graham's.

Sources

1. Isamu Noguchi
2. Isamu Noguchi
3. ^ "Noguchi". Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
4. ^ Pina, Leslie (1998). Classic Herman Miller. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 0-7643-0471-2.
5. ^ Duus, 2004. pp. 45–46
6. ^ Duus, 2004. pp. 73–74
7. ^ Noguchi, 1968. p. 14
8. ^ a b c d e f luxflux.net. URL consultato il 2 gennaio 2011 (archiviato dall'url originale il 21 maggio 2011).
9. Members: Isamu Noguchi. American Academy of Arts and Letters, abgerufen am 17. April 2019.
10. nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "N" / Noguchi, Isamu ANA 1983 (Memento vom 16. Januar 2014 im Internet Archive) (abgerufen am 6. Juli 2015)
11. 1 2 Isamu Noguchi // Encyclopædia Britannica (англ.)
12. Ashton, Dore, ‘’Noguchi: East and West’’, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1992, pp 131, 148