Chronology of the Life of Isamu Noguchi

This chronology appears in Bruce Altshuler, Isamu Noguchi (New York: Abbeville Press, 1994), pp.113-116.

1904  November 17 -- Isamu Noguchi born in Los Angeles to Leonie Gilmour, American writer.  Isamu's father, Japanese poet Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi, had returned to Tokyo earlier in the year.

1906  February -- Leonie takes Isamu with her to Japan, to join Yone in Tokyo.

1910  December --  Leonie and Isamu move out of Tokyo to Omori. 

1912  Leonie and Isamu move to seaside town of Chigasaki.  Sister Ailes born.

1913  Yone marries his house servant and begins Japanese family.  November -- Leonie builds a new home in Chigasaki, and Isamu is semi-apprenticed to the carpenter to help with the project.

1916  September -- Isamu taken from Japanese school and sent to Saint Joseph's College in Yokohama.

1917  January -- Leonie, Isamu, and Ailes move to Yokohama.

1918  Isamu sent alone to Rolling Prairie, Indiana to attend the Interlaken School.  School closed for wartime use, and Isamu is befriended by school's founder, Dr. Edward Rumely, who places him in the home of Swedenborgian minister, Dr. Samuel Mack, in La Porte, Indiana.

1922  Graduates from La Porte High School as Isamu Gilmour.  Dr. Rumely arranges a summer apprenticeship with sculptor Gutzon Borglum in Connecticut, and raises funds for Isamu to begin premedical studies at Columbia University.  Fall -- moves to New York and enters Columbia University.

1923  Leonie returns to California after 17 years in Japan.

1924  Leonie moves to New York, and encourages Isamu to take an evening sculpture class at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School.  Head of school Onorio Ruotolo is enthusiastic and gives Isamu his first exhibition after 3 months.  Leaves Columbia to devote himself to sculpture.  Begins using name of Noguchi instead of Gilmour.  Sets up first studio at 127 University Place with assistance from Dr. Rumely.  Elected member of National Sculpture Society.

1925-26  Exhibits academic figurative sculpture in salons of the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.  Creates masks for Michio Ito performance of Yeats's At the Hawk's Well, his first work for the theater.  Frequents advanced galleries of modern art, especially Alfred Stieglitz's Intimate Gallery and J.B. Neuman's New Art Circle.  November-December 1926 -- sees Brancusi exhibition at Brummer Gallery.

1927  Awarded John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for travel to Paris and the East.  April -- arrives in Paris.  Soon is introduced to Brancusi and works as his assistant each morning for 3-6 months.  Draws in the afternoons at Academie Grande Chaumière and Academie Collarosi.  Socializes within artists' community that includes Alexander Calder, Morris Kantor, and Stuart Davis.  After leaving Brancusi begins first stone and wood sculpture in his own studio in Montparnasse, at 7 rue Belloni (now rue d'Arsonval).

1928  Works in Paris on abstract sculptures and abstract gouache drawings.  Moves studio to 11 rue Dedouvre, Gentilly.  Guggenheim Fellowship is not renewed and returns to New York at end of year.

1929  Establishes studio on top floor of Carnegie Hall.  April -- has first one-person exhibition at Eugene Schoen Gallery, where exhibits Paris abstractions.  Meets R. Buckminster Fuller and Martha Graham.  Moves studio to Madison Avenue and 29th Street.  Supports himself with portrait sculpture, which he will continue to do through the next decade.

1930  January-February -- exhibits portrait sculpture in New York, and travels with Buckminster Fuller to Cambridge, Mass. and to Chicago on an exhibition-lecture tour.  April -- returns to Paris for two months.  Travels via Moscow to Peking.  Remains in Peking for seven months, where studies ink brush technique with Chi Pai-shih, creating large series of figurative brush paintings.

1931  March -- arrives in Japan to a difficult reunion with his father.  Befriended by his uncle Totaro Takagi.  Travels to Kyoto, where first sees Zen gardens and ancient Haniwa sculpture.  Works in pottery of Jinmatsu Uno.  September -- exhibits ceramic sculptures at 18th Nikaten Exhibition, Tokyo.  October -- returns to New York.  November --  Ruth Parks acquired by Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

1932  February -- exhibits Peking brush drawings and Chinese ceramic sculpture.  Makes Miss Expanding Universe, an image of dancer Ruth Page, and designs sack costume for her.  Evicted from Sherwood Studios at 58 West 57th Street, and moves to storefront at 446 East 76th Street.  Angna acquired by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1933  January -- publication of first full-length essay on Noguchi, written by Julien Levy.  Moves to better quarters at the Hotel des Artistes, 1 West 67th Street.  Summer -- travels to London and exhibits Peking brush drawings.  Designs first large-scale public projects -- Monument to the Plow, Play Mountain, and Monument to Ben Franklin -- as well as Musical Weathervane (all unrealized).

1934  Critic Murdock Pemberton takes Noguchi to present Play Mountain to Robert Moses, New York City Parks Commissioner, who rejects plan with sarcasm.   Dropped from government Public Works of Art Project due to non-traditional sculpture submitted for review.  Summer -- works in Woodstock, New York to prepare exhibition for winter.  Moves studio to 239 East 44th Street.

1935  February -- exhibits public projects and political works, including Death (Lynched Figure).  Creates first stage design for Martha Graham, Frontier.  Leaves New York for California.  Sculpts portrait heads in Hollywood, and designs swimming pool for Josef von Sternberg at the request of Richard Neutra (unrealized).

1936  Travels to Mexico.  Works for eight months to create History Mexico, a 72-foot political mural in high relief at the Abelardo Rodriguez Market, Mexico City.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Chronicle.

1937  Returns to New York, with studio at 211 East 49th Street.  Designs first mass-produced object, Radio Nurse intercom for Zenith Radio Corporation. 

1938  Designs first fountain, Chassis Fountain, to be constructed of magnesite for the Ford Motor Company building at the New York World's Fair.  October -- awarded commission for stainless steel relief, News, for the Associated Press Building, Rockefeller Center.

1939  Travels to Hawaii at the invitation of Dole along with other artists.  Designs his first playground equipment for Ala Moana Park, Honolulu (unrealized).  Moves studio to 52 West 10th Street.  Designs first table for A. Conger Goodyear, President of the Museum of Modern Art.  Works in Boston on casting and finishing of Associated Press Building commission, completed 1940.

1940  Designs set for Martha Graham's El Penitente.

1941  Makes model of Contoured Playground (unrealized) and presents the design to New York City Parks Department.  Capital acquired by Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Summer -- drives to California with Arshile Gorky and friends.  December 7 -- living in Hollywood when Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

1942  January -- organizes Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy.  March -- travels to Washington in attempt to mitigate hardships of Japanese-American relocation.  May -- voluntarily enters Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona in order to improve environment of internees.  Leaves Poston disillusioned, after six months.  Establishes studio at 33 MacDougal Alley, New York.

1943  Makes first "lunar" illuminated sculptures, and designs three-legged cylinder lamp to be manufactured by Knoll in 1944.  Creates mixed media sculptures, as well as carving stone and wood.

1944  Begins series of interlocking slab sculptures of slate and marble.  Designs sets for three works by Martha Graham: Appalachian Spring, Herodiade, and Imagined Wing.  Designs set and costumes for Ruth Page's The Bells.  Designs biomorphic coffee table and a dinette set, which will be manufactured by Herman Miller in 1947.

1945  Designs plan with Edward Durrell Stone for Jefferson Memorial Park, Saint Louis, Missouri (unrealized).  Designs set for Erick Hawkins's John Brown.

1946  September -- works by Noguchi are exhibited in 14 Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  First important account of Noguchi's work is written by Thomas B. Hess.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Dark Meadow.

1947  Creates "lunar" ceilings for American Stove Company Building (Saint Louis, Missouri) and Time-Life Building (New York City).  Herman Miller Furniture Company begins production of Noguchi designs.  Creates model for Memorial to Man, later called Sculpture to be Seen from Mars (unrealized).  Designs sets for two Martha Graham works, Errand into the Maze and Night Journey.  Designs set for Erick Hawkins's Stephen Acrobat.  Designs set and costumes for Merce Cunningham-John Cage work, The Seasons.

1948  Designs sets and costumes for George Balanchine's Orpheus, and sets for Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels and Yuriko Amemiya's Tale of Seizure.  Creates "lunar" stairwell for S.S. Argentina (destroyed 1959).  Designs park and memorial for Gandhi at Raj-gat, India (unrealized).  July 21 -- Arshile Gorky commits suicide, after Noguchi and Wilfredo Lam drive him from New York to his Connecticut home.

1949  March -- Noguchi has first one-person show in New York since 1935 at the Charles Egan Gallery.  Awarded fellowship from Bollingen Foundation for a book on "environments of leisure," a work which was not completed.   May -- begins travel for Bollingen study to France, England, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, Cambodia, and Indonesia.

1950  May 2 -- arrives in Japan to much publicity, and welcomed by young artists and architects, including Kenzo Tange.  Asked to design memorial room and garden for his father at Keio University (completed 1952).  August -- exhibits new ceramics, furniture, model of Hiroshima memorial bell tower, and sculpture and models for Keio University project at Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo.  September 4 -- departs for New York.  November -- meets future wife, actress Yoshiko (Shirley) Yamaguchi, in New York.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Judith.

1951  March -- returns to Japan.  June -- travels to Hiroshima to see two bridges into Peace Park for possible commission to design railings.  July -- awarded Hiroshima bridge commission (completed 1952).  Travels to Gifu, where creates the first Akari lantern designs.  Designs garden for new Reader's Digest Building in Tokyo.  Returns to Hollywood with Shirley Yamaguchi, where does preliminary design for United Nations Playground (unrealized).  Included in first Sao^ Paulo Biennial, Brazil.  Returns to New York in winter and begins work on garden for Lever Brothers Building, the first of many projects with Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.

1952  Returns to Japan in spring.  Asked by Kenzo Tange and mayor of Hiroshima to design large Memorial to the Atomic Dead (unrealized).  May -- married to Shirley Yamaguchi in formal ceremony.  (Official date of marriage recorded as December 18 at U.S. Embassy, Tokyo.)  Establishes house and studio in Kita Kamakura in traditional structure belonging to potter Kitaoji Rosanjin, and works in ceramics.  Proposal for Hiroshima cenotaph rejected.  September -- ceramic works and Akari exhibited in second one-person exhibition of the new Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura.  First Akari lanterns available in Japan.

1953  January-February -- returns to New York, and works to reverse government denial of U.S. visa to Shirley Yamaguchi for her past association with suspected Communists in Hollywood.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Voyage (set reused for Circe, 1963).  July-December -- spends much of time outside of U.S. with Shirley, including stays in Paris, Greece, and Hong Kong.

1954  Knoll International manufactures rocking stools and table.  November -- exhibits ceramic sculpture from Japan in New York.

1955  April -- first Akari exhibition in New York.  Designs sets and costumes for Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Seraphic Dialogue.

1956  Begins work on gardens for UNESCO headquarters, Paris (completed 1958), and for Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Bloomfield Hills, Connecticut (completed 1957).  Begins work on waterfall wall and ceiling for 666 Fifth Avenue, New York (completed 1958).  Creates cast iron sculptures in Japan.

1957  January -- divorced from Shirley Yamaguchi.  Designs memorial commemorating the 2500th birthday of Buddha for New Delhi competition (unrealized).  Travels to Japan to search for stones for UNESCO.

1958  Re-settles in New York after completion of UNESCO gardens.  Creates sheet aluminum sculpture at factory of lighting designer Edison Price, with assistance of Shoji Sadao.  Designs sets for Martha Graham's Clytemnestra and Embattled Garden.

1959  Creates body of white marble sculptures when Eleanor Ward refuses to exhibit aluminum sculptures at his spring Stable Gallery exhibition.  Begins a series of balsa wood sculptures that will be cast in bronze in Italy in 1962, and a series of stone sculptures using the circular image of the sun.

1960  Begins work on sculptures for First National City Bank Building Plaza, Fort Worth, Texas (completed 1961).  Begins work on the Sunken Garden for Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (completed 1964); and on the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, Israel Museum, Jerusalem (completed 1965).  Designs sets for Martha Graham's Acrobats of God and Alcestis.  July -- included in Documenta II, Kassel, West Germany.

1961  Establishes studio and living quarters in former factory building in Long Island City, Queens, across the East River from Manhattan.  Begins work on the Sunken Garden for Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New York (completed 1964).  Begins five-year collaboration with Louis Kahn, issuing in five designs for a Riverside Drive Playground, New York (unrealized).  Begins work on Mississippi Fountain for John Hancock Insurance Company Building, New Orleans, Louisiana (completed 1962).

1962  Works at the American Academy in Rome on balsa wood and clay sculptures to be cast in bronze.  Begins working in marble quarries of the firm of Henraux in Querceta, Italy.  Will return to work in Italy each year for a decade.  Designs set for Martha Graham's Phaedra.

1964  Creates gardens for the IBM Headquarters, Armonk, New York.  Designs memorial for John Fitzgerald Kennedy (unrealized).  Included in Documenta III, Kassel, West Germany.

1965  Begins work on first realized playground, at Kodomo No Kuni (Children's Land), near Tokyo, Japan, with Yoshio Otani (completed 1966).

1966  Creates last set design, for Martha Graham's Cortege of Eagles.  Creates large painted steel sculpture for installation outside the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.  In Italy at Henraux quarries makes large works of rough marble.  Establishes the Akari Foundation, New York, to support artistic exchange between the United States and Japan.  Begins working on the island of Shikoku with Masatoshi Izumi on Black Sun for the Seattle Art Museum, initiating their collaboration.

1968  April -- retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.  Publishes autobiography, A Sculptor's World.  Submits design for United States Pavilion, Expo 70, Osaka, Japan (unrealized).  Creates Red Cube for 140 Broadway, New York; and Octetra play sculpture for Spoleto, Italy.  Begins series of stone table sculptures, and series of marble post-tension sculptures.

1969  Creates Skyviewing Sculpture for Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington.  Establishes studio in village of Mure on island of Shikoku, Japan, in collaboration with Masatoshi Izumi, and completes first of ongoing series of large scale basalt sculptures there. Black Sun installed in Seattle.

1970  Begins series of void sculptures.  Realizes nine fountains for Expo 70, Osaka, Japan.

1972  Begins work on Dodge Fountain and Philip A. Hart Plaza, Detroit, Michigan, with Shoji Sadao (completed 1979).  Creates sculptures for Bayerische Vereins Bank, Munich, Germany.

1974  Begins work on Shinto, Bank of Tokyo Building, New York (completed 1975, destroyed 1980); and Intetra, Mist Fountain, for Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida (completed 1975).  Void installed at Pepsico, Purchase, New York.  May -- acquires building across the street from his Long Island City studio and begins renovating it for display and storage of his sculpture.

1975  Creates Landscape of Time, Jackson Federal Building, Seattle, Washington.  Begins Playscapes playground, Piedmont Park, Atlanta, Georgia (completed 1976).

1976  Creates Portal, Cuyahoga Justice Center, Cleveland, Ohio, and begins Sky Gate, Honolulu, Hawaii.  Begins fountain for the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (completed 1977).  Designs 150-foot Friendship Fountain for Missouri River between Nebraska and Iowa, with Shoji Sadao (unrealized).  Designs Martha Graham Dance Theater, New York, with Shoji Sadao (unrealized).

1977  Begins Momo Taro for Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York, and Tengoku for Sogetsu Flower Arranging School, Tokyo, Japan (both completed 1978).  Designs landscape for Sacred Rocks of Kukaniloko, Honolulu, Hawaii (unrealized).

1978  Begins Lillie and Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, with Shoji Sadao (completed 1986).  Noguchi's Imaginary Landscapes exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Isamu Noguchi by Sam Hunter published, first monograph on the artist.

1979  Designs Piazza, Finanziaria Fiere di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.  Begins design of Bayfront Park, Miami, with Shoji Sadao (construction continues, 1993).

1980  Installs Passage of Seasons at the Cleveland Art Museum, Cleveland, Ohio, and Unidentified Object at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  Begins Constellation (For Louis Kahn) for the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (completed 1983).  Begins redesign of Bolt of Lightening...Memorial to Ben Franklin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (installed 1984).  Begins California Scenario, Two Town Center, South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, California (completed 1982); and To the Issei and Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center Plaza, Los Angeles, California (completed 1983), both with Shoji Sadao.  Exhibition, The Sculpture of Spaces, held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.  The Akari Foundation becomes the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, with the intention of establishing a museum of Noguchi's work in Long Island City.

1981  Purchases land next to Long Island City building, and begins design and construction of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, with Shoji Sadao.

1983  April -- opens by appointment the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, Long Island City, New York.  Begins construction of garden at studio in Mure, Shikoku, Japan, with Masatoshi Izumi.

1984  Completes water garden for Domon Ken Museum, Sakata, Japan.  Eightieth birthday celebration at Sogetsu Flower Arranging School, Tokyo, Japan.

1985  May -- official opening of Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, Long Island City, New York.

1986  June -- represents the United States at the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.  November -- receives Kyoto Prize from Inomori Foundation, Japan.  Creates Tsukubai fountain for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1987  June -- receives National Medal of Arts in Washington, D.C.

1988  Creates master plan of 400-acre park for Sapporo, Japan (under construction, 1994), and designs large sculpture for Takamatsu Airport, Shikoku, Japan (completed 1991).  July -- awarded Third Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government.  December -- receives Award for Distinction in Sculpture from the Sculpture Center, New York. December 30 -- dies in New York.