Isamu Noguchi 1904 – 1988
Sculptor, born in Los Angeles, California, USA. Brought up in Japan, he studied medicine at Columbia University, then moved to New York City, where he attended sculpture classes. A Guggenheim fellowship permitted him to study with Brancusi in Paris (1927-9). He returned to New York City and made stylized sculptures, but from 1940 his work moved closer to Surrealism, incorporating the interrelation of bone and stone. From the mid-1940s he became one of the best-known US sculptors, gaining worldwide commissions for large-scale public sculptures, such as the fountain for the Detroit Civic Center Plaza (1975).
