Bollingen Travels

Bollingen Travels And Return To Japan (1949-1952)

Isamu Noguchi left the United States in May 1949 on a travel grant from the Bollingen Foundation to study the monuments and public spaces of the pre-modern world. For almost a year Noguchi traveled to see the prehistoric stones of Brittany; the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; and the temple complexes of India, Cambodia and Indonesia. In the spring of 1950 he returned to Japan for the first time in almost twenty years, where he was welcomed as an important modern artist. Noguchi immediately took on a number of projects, including the design of a memorial room and garden for his father at Keio University in Tokyo. His exhibition at the Mitsukoshi Department Store included, in addition to new ceramic sculpture, a model for a memorial Bell Tower for Hiroshima, which led to a commission for two bridges into Hiroshima's Peace Park. The success of these bridges prompted a commission to design the park's central memorial to those who had perished in the bomb blast, but the Memorial to the Atomic Dead of Hiroshima was rejected at the last moment because Noguchi was an American. While working on these projects in 1951 Noguchi designed the first of his mulberry paper and bamboo Akari lamps, which he would develop into an important international design product line. In May 1952 Noguchi married the film star Yoshiko (Shirley) Yamaguchi, and the couple settled on the land of the eminent potter Kitaoji Rosanjin. Using Rosanjin's kilns Noguchi created a large body of ceramic sculpture, which was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura in September 1952. During 1951-52 Noguchi also worked on his first corporate garden commission in the United States, for the new Lever Brothers Building in New York City, but neither of his two designs were built. In early 1953 Noguchi returned to New York, which again became his home after the previous three years spent largely in Japan.