Isamu Noguchi

Happy Birthday Isamu Noguchi!! American born sculptor, Isamu Noguchi was born to Japanese poet (father) and American writer (mother) in 1904. At age three he moved with his mother to Japan where he lived until he was 14. He was sent alone back to the US and was placed with Dr. Samuel Mack, graduating from high school and received a summer apprenticeship with sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. He entered Columbia University to study pre-med, but when his mother returned to the US and encouraged him to pursue sculpture, he took her advice, attended a night course in sculptor and shortly thereafter quit the University. He expressed his reverence for sculpture, "The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence."  Noguchi began with classical figurative sculpture, traveled to Paris on the John Guggenheim Fellowship, and embarked on his abstract work. I was especially taken with his “voids” where he explores Zen and Buddhist concepts of emptiness with the “use of empty space as a positive formal element.” The one included today is called Energy Void and I love the idea of containing a landscape within its center.