I was looking through my books about Noguchi, searching for references to his Bamboo Basket Chair (I knew I’d seen a black and white photograph of it somewhere years ago). Here’s what I learned about this beautiful piece of modernism:

The [August 1950] Mitsukoshi show also included a chair with a woven-bamboo seat backrest. Noguchi designed this piece for export, with the bamboo elements — produced in the same way as traditional fish baskets — to be fabricated in Japan and shipped to the United States. There they would be attached to bent-metal frames, manufactured in America. The chair remained a unique prototype, but the next year Noguchi was able to realize his ambition of encouraging local production through the export of modern design.

– Bruce Altshuler. Noguchi. Abbeville Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville , 1994, p. 58

When I finally found the reference (I love that chair!), what was especially interesting was the text immediately above and below this particular picture. It tells how Noguchi began the process of realizing his “ambiton” via the design of his Akari for production in Gifu, near Lake Biwa in Kansai.

It was on his way to Hiroshima to discuss his bridge proposal that Noguchi first visited the town of Gifu, known for its manufacture of umbrellas and lanterns from mulberry-bark paper. Having heard of his design work, the mayor asked him to create contemporary  lamps using the traditional bamboo-and-paper construction. That evening Noguchi sketched his first two Akari (the word means “light as illumination) light sculptures … He viewed each Akari basically as two sculptures, one when light was reflected off it, and another when light was emitted from it.

– Bruce Altshuler. Noguchi. Abbeville Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville , 1994, p. 58

From that evening, Noguchi went on to design and produce more than 100 Akari designs. They must have felt like children to him.

I’ve always said no home is complete without at least one Akari (IKEA knockoffs don’t count). I know they’re ridiculously expensive in North America (all those middle-people), but if you’re ever in Japan, stock up: they’re priced just right over there.

Isamu Noguchi. Memorial to the dead, Hiroshima, 1952. Model showing section through underground (projected to be built of black granite); proposed height above ground: 6 metres. Proposal rejected.

The four photographs above a from Isamu Noguchi. Text by Sam Hunter. New York: Abbeville Press, 1978:

While Noguchi was overseeing his two bridge railings in Hiroshima, the other giant of twentieth-century Japanese design, Kenzo Tange, was nearby working on his Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and other works in Hiroshima.

It was here, in the early 1950s, that modern Japan began.

Kenzo Tange, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima, 1952.

Isamu Noguchi (second from left) and Kenzo Tange (third from left), visit the West Peace Bridge [Yuku] to supervise construction, 1951.

Courtesy of Chugoku Shimbun.

designKULTUR:
9 AKARI BY ISAMU NOGUCHI

Whilst researching my post on Google’s Noguchi’s Birthday Doodle, I discovered that the Noguchi Museum on Long Island was offering this limited edition piece.

Another (until now missing) piece of Isamu’s refined minimalism.

designKULTUR:

ISAMU NOGUCHI: THE SON ALSO RISES

NOGUCHI: MOERENUMA PARK, SAPPORO

FULLER + NOGUCHI: BEST OF FRIENDS

DECODING GOOGLE’S NOGUCHI’S BIRTHDAY DOODLE

The best part of Detroit is the Noguchi fountain on the waterfront at Hart Plaza. I was lucky enough to view the beauty of the fountain while spending the day in Detroit and catch a mist from the fountain on that horribly humid day.

Stephanie & Noguchi Fountain

Author:  Stephanie Miller, Modernica Showroom Sales Rep

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“When Isamu Met Bucky” by David Friedman, ironicsans.com

I’ve been thinking about R. Buckminster Fuller lately — what a visionary he was and how his inclusive philosophy about this planet we all share seems so timely.

Then it dawned on me that Bucky was friends with another hero of mine, Isamu Noguchi.

Bucky & Isamu, 1971 (Noguchi Museum)

So, to refresh my memory of their friendship, I went back to my copy of Masayo Duus’ wonderful biography, The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey Without Borders:

[Noguchi's] creative experiments were reflected in the sculptures exhibited at the Sterner Gallery [in 1930] … The work that attracted the most attention was a dazzling bust of Buckminster Fuller, whose close-cropped head was rendered in chrome-plated bronze. Fuller, a heavyset man shorter than Isamu, had a huge head that seemed to balance unsteadily on his shoulders as an incessant stream of ideas bubbled out of him. What more suitable material could there be for a bust of this unusual genius — an inventor, architect, engineer, designer, and philosopher considered a generation ahead of his times — than dazzling chrome.

- Masayo Duus, The Life of Isamu Noguchi, p. 124

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) R. Buckminster Fuller, 1929, Chrome-plated bronze, 33 x 15 x 25 cm, Alexandra and Samuel May, © 2007 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photograph by F. S. Lincoln.

Buckminster Fuller next to his sculpture by Noguchi, 1929. Photography by Noguchi. Source: The Noguchi Museum

Great minds think alike and share. Click here to discover  the circle of friends that Noguchi cultivated over the years.

As a stamp collector, I’m pleased that the US Postal Service has honoured both of these giants of 20th-century thought and design:

In 2006, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum organized an exhibition entitled “Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi,” curated by curated by Shoji Sadao. Wish I could have seen it!

Todd Oldham on Noguchi:

Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe – Whitney Museum

The model I covet the most:

designKULTUR:

ISAMU NOGUCHI, KENZO TANGE, AND THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM IN JAPAN

Knoll, the famed Mid-Century Modern company that helped to produce designers like Eero Saarinen (who I’ve studied for months now) launched a kids line in May 2009, making their very famous pieces shrunk down to fit the little ones.

The pieces they are shrinking down are from such designers as:
*Harry Bertoia
*Maya Lin
*Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
*Isamu Noguchi
*Jens Risom
*Eero Saarinen
*Kazuhide Takahama.

Check out my favorite, The Womb Chair (of course!) it’s Saarinen’s but cozier and kid sized.

If you’re not familiar with the name Isamu Noguchi, all the more reason to visit the Long Island City museum dedicated to his work. Opened in 1985 by Noguchi himself, and re-opened in 2004 after a two-and-a-half year renovation, the indoor-outdoor space includes thirteen galleries and a garden, which display sculptures by the artist in stone, wood, metal and clay. Wander room to room and find works in both large and small scale, models of commissioned works, some realized, others not, and photographic representations of some of Noguchi’s most notable public projects that exist throughout the world. During the summer, the museum holds Free First Fridays with no cost admission and extended hours on the first Friday of each month, and on second Sundays, Music in the Garden. There is a sense of peace that exists in Noguchi’s work and in the space in which it sits—hard to describe, yet easily felt when walking through it.

The Noguchi Museum

Nenn es japanischen Minimalismus, aber der Stand des Noguchi Museums bei der diesjährigen ICFF in New York präsentierte genau ein Produkt. Um so beeindruckender war die Präsentation.

Da Isamu Noguchi selbst leider seit 1988 tot ist wären neue Produkte auch etwas zuviel erwartet. Jedenfalls hat uns die Neuauflage der Akari 1A Tischlampe, eine farblich veränderte Version, sehr gefallen. Und einmal mehr werden wir daran erinnert, dass obwohl man überall billige Kopien von Noguchis Werken kaufen kann, die Originale haben weiß Gott tausend mal mehr zu bieten und sind definitiv ihr Geld wert.

Akari 1AS von Isamu Noguchi

Has been created for the ones we love.  Knoll kids is a collection of spirited, modern furniture scaled for a younger generation. 

              

Dorothy Hale and Isamu Noguchi at the premiere of "Four Saints in Three Acts," February 7, 1934, Hartford, Connecticut

In 1934, the socialite and actress Dorothy Hale took a roadtrip through Connecticut with 2 old friends, writer Claire Boothe Luce and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. They drove in a special car Noguchi had designed with his drinking buddy, futuristic inventor Buckminster Fuller. The car was called the Dymaxion.

The Dymaxion Car

Buckminster Fuller with his portrait by Isamu Noguchi, 1929, photo by Noguchi

The 20-foot long aluminum-bodied Dymaxion car caused a traffic jam wherever it went.  This was between the 2 world wars when cars were sedans and pick-ups. “Bucky’s” car was shaped like a teardrop and ran on 3 wheels. It went 90 m.p.h. and got 30 m.p.g. The 3-wheeler made a 360 degree turn on a dime. A periscope that came out of the roof gave extra visibility. It seated 11 passengers.

It was the car of the future – for a while. Unfortunately, only 3 Dymaxion cars were ever produced. Orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski bought one. Amelia Earhart was interested in investing. Financing was a problem and Fuller was running out of cash.

Aviator Amelia Earhart

Any hope of putting the Dymaxion in full-scale production dried up quickly when the car was involved in a fatal accident at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Another car was blamed for the crash but that didn’t stop the negative publicity for the Dymaxion.

Sadly, only one of the Dymaxions exists today. You can view the restored exterior of the car at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. Disappointingly, though, the car windows are painted opaque from the inside to prevent you looking inside. Evidently, the inside was in very bad shape when the car was acquired and little information exists as to its original look in order to guide the museum restoration artists. The rumor is that the car had been used as a chicken coop somewhere in the Midwest before it was discovered, which explains the wrecked state of the interior!

View this youtube video to see the amazing turning radius of the Dymaxion. While you’re viewing, keep a lookout for Amelia Earhart in the back seat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlLZE23EJKs&feature=related

For more on Dorothy Hale, see my most popular post, “Frida Kahlo: The Suicide of Dorothy Hale.”

Image from the current issue of Atomic Ranch:

Isamu Noguchi Table Featured

Images from Apartment Therapy:

Saucer Bubble Lamp, Fiberglass Chairs

Case Study Daybed, Fiberglass Chairs

White Fiberglass Rocker

George Nelson Bubble Lamps

Captioned items available at Modernica.

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"Fulang-Chang and I" by Frida Kahlo, 1937. Fulang-Chang was Frida's favorite spider monkey.

As discussed in a previous post, “Frida Kahlo: A Few Small Nips,” Frida was devastated to learn of her husband Diego Rivera’s affair with her younger sister Cristina. No one really knows exactly when Diego and Cristina began their affair, but, by early 1935, Frida had moved out of her San Angel house she shared with Diego and, taking her favorite spider monkey, rented an apartment in the center of Mexico City. Frida was determined to try and create and independent life for herself. She had not yet become a celebrated artist and was financially dependent upon Diego.

But Frida couldn’t make the break. Although Frida had a strong life force, she became desperately insecure without Diego around to praise her talents and beauty. Although she had moved out to get away from Diego, she continued to see him constantly, he keeping some of his clothes in her apartment and buying her a set of blue leather furniture just like the red set he’d given Cristina for her place. 

Frida was so mixed up and unhappy. Both living with Diego made her miserable and living without him made her miserable.

Cracks began to appear in the brave face Frida showed her friends. Old boyfriend Alex Gómez Arias visited her at her flat one day. Frida, glancing out the window, spotted her sister Cristina at a gas station across the road. Frida flew into a rage.

“Look!” she cried. “Come here! Why does she come and fill up her car in front of my house?”

Diego Rivera

Finally, in early July, Frida packed and took off to New York with friends. After confiding her troubles, she came to a decision. She could not live without Diego. She reconciled herself to the fact that, should she stay married to Diego, he would continue his skirt-chasing. On July 23, 1935, she wrote him a letter:

“[I know now that] all these letters, liaisons with petticoats, lady teachers of ’English,’ gypsy models, assistants with ‘good intentions,’ ‘plenipotentiary emissaries from distant places,’ only represent flirtations, and that at bottom you and i love each other dearly….

All these things have been repeated throughout the seven years that we have lived together, and all the rages I have gone through have served only to make me understand in the end that I love you more than my own skin….”

Frida returned to San Angel to live, once again, with Diego. Diego continued his philandering ways. Frida herself began a flurry of affairs with a number of people, both men and women. The relationships were often fiery and fleeting. She was fascinated by great men and women.

Diego was not jealous of Frida’s women lovers but was extremely jealous of the men. One of Frida’s lovers included the American sculptor Isamu Noguchi who had come to Mexico to do a mural.

When Rivera discovered it, he was so enraged that he sped to the Coyoacán house, where the lovers were in bed. Frida’s mozo (houseboy), Chucho, warned his mistress of Diego’s arrival. Noguchi threw on his clothes, but one of the hairless dogs pounced upon a sock and ran off with it. Noguchi…abandoned the sock, scrambled up the orange tree in the patio, and fled over the roof. Of course, Diego found the sock and did what Mexican machos are supposed to do under such circumstances.

As Noguchi tells it: ‘Diego came by with a gun. He always carried a gun.’(1)

Diego demanded that Frida and Noguchi end the affair.

(1) Herrera, Hayden.  Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. New York: HarperCollins, 1983.

Vanessa Friedman on the return of 80’s fashions.

Sebastian Coe on winning and excellence.

And, of course, in the interval before when my Miser directing stipend restarts my FT subscription, one of my new favorite bylines (drink offer still stands, Ms. Dalley, a portion of the stipend remains unspent) — Jan Dalley — has lunch with one of my favorite playwrights — Tom Stoppard — talking about the play of his I want to direct (and other topics) — Arcadia — so very badly (yes, I want to direct it well, but directing it has been a dream ever since I read it). I need a theatre that will let me stage Arcadia: it’s a beautiful, glorious and delicate thing.

And from a couple weeks ago, before the temporary lapse, sculpture gardens and a return of my need to visit the Isamu Noguchi museum, thanks to article on The Storm King Art Center — or any museum. Sculpture garden w/ a Noguchi + multiple Rodins + excellent brunch at Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art might be a doable birthday treat.

And another sculpture article, with a Matisse quote which made me think of @AlejandroAdams and throwing oneself into the critical fray.

Meus posts sobre fotografia estão sendo focados basicamente sobre a especialidade da realização de portraits. David Lachapelle foi citado, assim como Man Ray, Mathew Barney que será assunto para próximo post e agora acho que o Mestre dos portraits: Arnold Newman, que inclusive fotografou Man Ray. Ele fotografou as personalidades mais controversas do século XX, desde Pablo Picasso a Bill Clinton. Seus shots foram direcionados para músicos, compositores, escritores, atores, artistas, políticos com impecável técnica e um fantástico desenvolvimento formal. Newman basicamente fotografou a alma e a cultura do século XX através das publicações de ponta como LIFE Magazine, LOOK, Fortune, The New Yorque Times Magazzine e The New Yorquer.

De acordo com Newman: ” Os portraits são uma forma de biografia que pretendem informar e memorizar aquele momento para a história”, que pode ser estudado por antropologistas no futuro, segundo Newman. Mas o que vemos de mais fascinante em Newman é que ele sabe capturar cada momento de cada personalidade de acordo com a atmosfera que revela o que realmente o fotógrafo e principalmente o fotografado significa em sua essência, uma máscara colorida, uma presença estética, um silêncio interior, uma psicologia criativa, uma relação com os arredores e as outras pessoas. Ele conecta o meio pictorial que melhor representa sua compreensão sobre uma pessoa. Ele cria uma tensão visual entre o momento e a presença psicológica. Essa é a tensão que vemos e a eternidade que ela faz no interior de nossas vidas. Em relação a portraits Newman se destaca sobre os demais, sem dúvida alguma.    

Georgia O'Keeffee and Alfred Stieglitz

Piet Mondrian

Marc Chagall

 

Frank Lloyd Wright

Isamu Noguchi

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Giorgio de Chirico

Giacometti

Calder

Senator John F. Kennedy

Henri Cartier Bresson

Jackson Pollock

Man Ray

Marilyn Monroe

Joan Miró

Primer Minister Netanyahu

Yasser Arafat

President John F. Kennedy

Woody Allen

Jasper Jonhs

Bill Clinton

Call it Japanese minimalism if you want but we were very taken with the stand from the Noguchi Museum: One product

Given the genial Noguchi died in 1988 new products would have been a bit much to expect, but we did like this re-issue of the 1AS and we’re once again reminded that although yes you can buy cheap copies of Noguchis work everywhere, the originals do offer an awful lot more and are worth the investment.

Akari 1AS by Isamu Noguchi

Artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

By the summer of 1938, Frida Kahlo was on her way to being discovered as an artist in her own right, rather than only being referred to as the wife of famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. That summer, actor and art collector Edward G. Robinson had traveled to Mexico City just to see her paintings and had paid $200 each for four of them. Frida was thrilled. She had sold only a few of her paintings so far and had been content to just give them away. She later wrote of the Robinson sale:

“For me it was such a surprise that I marveled and said, “This way I am going to be able to be free; I’ll be able to travel and do what I want without asking Diego for money.”

She and Diego had become increasingly estranged because of his many illicit extramarital affairs, including one with Frida’s sister Cristina. Frida was heartsick by Diego’s infidelities and retaliated by having multiple affairs of her own, with both men and women. Despite their discord, they remained deeply in love. Frida and Diego made up one of those married couples who could neither stay together nor apart. By the summer of 1939, they would be divorced – only to remarry a year later.

"Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky (Between the Curtains)" by Frida Kahlo, 1937

That November, Frida Kahlo traveled to New York City for her first one-person exhibition of her paintings, held at the Julien Levy Gallery, confident in her new status as celebrated artist. As always, her exotic Zapotec clothing and heavy jewelry created a buzz in the press. Her show was a great success. Time magazine noted that “the flutter of the week in Manhattan was caused by the first exhibition of paintings by famed muralist Diego Rivera’s…wife, Frida Kahlo.” Frida Kahlo’s hand, bedecked with huge rings, adorned a cover of Vogue.

Notables such as artist Georgia O’Keeffe attended the gallery exhibit as did playwright and former editor of the fashion magazine Vanity Fair Claire Boothe Luce.

Claire Booth Brokaw (Luce) (1903-1987) as photographed by Cecil Beaton for the August 1934 issue of Vanity Fair

Luce remembered the occasion well:

“The exhibition was crowded. Frida Kahlo came up to me through the crowd and at once began talking about Dorothy’s suicide [Dorothy Hale was a friend of both Kahlo and Luce's].…Kahlo wasted no time suggesting that she do a recuerdo of Dorothy. I did not speak enough Spanish to understand what the word recuerdo meant….I thought Kahlo would paint a portrait of Dorothy in the style of her own self-portrait [dedicated to Trotsky][see above], which I bought in Mexico….

Suddenly it came to me that a portrait of Dorothy by a famous painter friend might be something [Dorothy's] poor mother might like to have. I said so, and Kahlo thought so, too. I asked the price, Kahlo told me, and I said, ‘Go ahead. Send the portrait to me when it is finished. I will then send it on to Dorothy’s mother.’”

Dorothy Hale was a sometime actress, Ziegfeld showgirl, and socialite. Hale’s life had gone downhill seven years earlier after her husband Gardiner Hale was killed when his car drove off a 500 foot cliff in Santa Maria, California. Hale’s career as an actress was drying up; she was failing her screen tests. She was in severe financial trouble and living on charity from friends.  On October 20, 1938, Hale assembled her close friends for a party at her New York apartment and announced that she was taking a long trip. The farewell party lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Hale stayed up writing good-bye letters to her friends and drinking the last of the vodka. A little before  6 a.m. on the 21st,  Hale put on her black velvet dress and pinned on it a corsage of small yellow roses sent to her by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi. She then climbed onto the windowsill of her luxury high-rise apartment suite and jumped to her death.

"The Suicide of Dorothy Hale" by Frida Kahlo, 1938/39

From the encounter between Luce and Kahlo at the gallery exhibit arose one of Frida Kahlo’s most shocking and controversial paintings, “The Suicide of Dorothy Hale” (1938/39). Kahlo painted Dorothy Hale as she jumped, fell, and landed, dead and bloody, on the concrete walk outside her apartment building. Blood-red lettering at the bottom of the retablo details the tragedy in Spanish:

“In New York City on the 21st of October 1938, at 6:00 in the morning, Dorothy Hale committed suicide by throwing herself from a very high window in the Hampshire House. In her memory, this portrait was executed by Frida Kahlo.”

Luce recalls the horror she felt when the painting was delivered to her home and she first laid eyes on it.

“[W]hen I pulled the painting out of the crate…I felt really physically sick. What was I going to do with this gruesome painting of the smashed corpse of my friend, and her blood dripping down all over the frame? I could not return it – across the top of the painting there was an angel waving an unfurled banner which proclaimed in Spanish that this was ‘The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, painted at the request of Clare Boothe Luce, for the mother of Dorothy’. I would not have requested such a gory picture of my worst enemy, much less of my unfortunate friend.”

Luce wanted to have the painting destroyed, but was dissuaded by friends. Instead, she had sculptor and friend Noguchi paint over the angel with the banner and gave the painting to a friend.

Luce couldn’t have known at the time that Kahlo was in a desperate state of mind as she always was when she was afraid of losing Diego. At the time she painted “The Suicide of Dorothy Hale,” Kahlo herself was having repeated thoughts of committing suicide.

For more on Frida, see “Categories,” in left column, find “People – Frida Kahlo.” I’ve written many posts on Frida. Enjoy!

For more on Dorothy Hale, read my post, “Dorothy Hale and the Dymaxion Car.”

I’ve written a new teen mystery, THE CANDY RAVERS, which I’ve posted here on this blog in its entirety. Click here  to read THE CANDY RAVERS or use the tab at the top of the site.

The Ryoanji Rock Garden is a famous “zen” garden, located in Rinsenji, Kyoto.  Many think that it dates back to the 15th century, and was always a zen garden.  The only real evidence that date back to a text from 1799 that refers to the a garden in the 1500s was called Tiger and Cubs Crossing the River (Tora no ko watashi) and designed by Saomi.  The two meanings of the garden encompass the 1) allegorical, mimetic, representational and 2) as an expression of Zen philosophy.

The artist, Isamu Noguchi, had reincarnated his version of this garden at Chase Manhattan in the 80s.  The materials, size, place have all changed, yet it is still totally reminiscent of the original, famous garden.  I love this work.  It’s no longer there, as the installation only lasted 4 years.

As with most things in my life, I started at the library. Ranch House Style introduced me to the 19th-century history of the working ranch house, with its exterior corredor and outdoor living spaces. More impressively, though, author Katherine Ann Samon and photographer Edmund Barr featured ranch houses that had been updated without losing the essential aspects that make ranch houses so attractive, like access to the outdoors and open floor plans.

Architect Lee F. Mindel’s North Sea weekend house. I love the airy color palette.

Cynthia Rowley and Bill Keenan’s South Fork beach house, built by Donald Deskey in 1932. The sliding multi-panel front door pushes away so that the living room is completely open to the outdoors.

Rowley and Keenan’s beach house with the sliding door closed.

Another view of Rowley and Keenan’s beach house.

Cee Scott Brown’s Sag Harbor weekend house. A little too Asian-influenced for my taste, with the pendant and Noguchi lantern, but I love the colors and materials, not to mention the Hans Wegner Wishbone chairs.

Another view of Brown’s home.

More information
Ranch House Style by Katherine Ann Samon
Photographs by Edmund Barr
Published by Clarkson Potter Publishers 2003

Summer ignites itself
Methodist style. Japanese 

paper lanterns Noguchi might have made
for Martha Graham’s last dance 

alight the campgrounds, set the island aglow
in pinks, oranges, yellows, fire-engine 

red awash. A crowd gathers to mingle, a child
may wander tonight 

in wonder the way gingerbread
cottages welcome her to their wooden railed porches, dare her 

to touch the gossamer skin
on their handmade firefly swarm, cracking paint on their rainbow eaves, beckon 

an unconscious desire to trace a piece
of island history with fingertips. Her grip on home

rice paper thin, she wants to believe
her step across these wooden planks will never end.  But 

as she witnesses this blaze of an island blasting its last August
shouts before a decrescendo toward an autumn whisper 

few hear, fewer comprehend, she knows she must relinquish
the island to return it to those who find 

illumination into night without
a lantern, without a tabernacle song.