The Italian Years (1960-1969)

During the 1960s Noguchi traveled extensively, working on large-scale projects and creating sculpture in America, Europe and Asia. He coordinated his activities from a home and studio across the East River from Manhattan in Long Island City, where he later established The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum. This was the period of his most active work on corporate and institutional commissions with Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings Merrill, and of his collaboration with Louis Kahn on the unrealized Riverside Drive Playground. Noguchi also traveled to Jerusalem to create his largest earthwork garden, the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden at the Israel Museum. Most of Noguchi's carving during the Sixties was done in marble during the summer months that he spent in Italy. But by 1969 Noguchi also had established a studio on the Japanese island of Shikoku, where he would create the large granite and basalt sculptures that culminated his career.

Essay  on Noguchi-Kahn collaboration  |  Noguchi on the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden  |  Chronology   |  Noguchi on Riverside Drive Playground