Wood

Noguchi learned to carve wood from Constantin Brancusi, for whom he worked as a studio assistant in Paris in 1927. During the 1930s wood was one of the many materials he used to make portrait heads, and in the 1940s Noguchi used both driftwood and carved mahogany to make biomorphic sculptures related to Surrealism. The last group of wood sculptures that Noguchi made were carved of light balsa wood, and were cast in bronze in 1962. Noguchi also used wood in his furniture designs, as well as in stage sets created for choreographers Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins.