Isamu Noguchi

Born in Los Angeles, 1904, and died in New York, 1988. Isamu Noguchi was a son of Yonejiro Noguchi (an Anglicist and poet) and Léonie Gilmour (a teacher and editor), and spent his childhood in Japan. After studying in the United States with the hope of becoming a sculptor, he traveled and learned in Asia and Europe, and worked in Paris as an assistant of sculptor Brâncuşi. Then, while working as a sculptor based in New York, he was engaged in a variety of activities, including furniture design, stage art work and landscape design for gardens and playgrounds. After the Second World War, he often visited Japan, to which he had a strong connection, and created ceramic sculptures and designed Akari lanterns using Japanese paper. He collaborated in the planning of Moerenuma Park in 1988, and designed the park as if it were a single sculpture. His design was taken over after his death, and the one-of-a-kind art park was completed in 2005.