Stone

Stone is the material most closely identified with the sculpture of Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi first learned to carve stone from Constantin Brancusi, for whom he worked as a studio assistant in Paris in 1927. During the 1930s stone was one of the many materials he used to make portrait heads , and in the 1940s Noguchi carved thin sheets of slate and marble into biomorphic sculptures of interlocking elements. In the 1950s Noguchi worked in Greece with white marble, and in Italy during the 1960s he carved Italian marble each summer in Tuscany. By 1970 Noguchi had established a studio on the Japanese island of Shikoku, where he created the large granite and basalt sculptures that culminated his career. In this late work stone became a symbol for nature and the earth, a theme Noguchi also engaged in his many gardens and playgrounds.

Noguchi on stone  |  Noguchi on interlocking sculptures  |  Essay on Noguchi's early abstraction