With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Isamu Noguchi
Architecture/Design, Sculpture
1904 – 1988
Prominent sculptor and landscape designer whose Connecticut commissions include monumental sculptures and courtyard gardens at CIGNA headquarters in Bloomfield and a courtyard garden at the Beinecke Library in New Haven at Yale University.
- Biography/Description of Work
Isamu Noguchi was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Of mixed heritage, he spent his early years in Japan before moving to New York, and maintained studios in both places.Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculpture, furniture and lighting designs, drawings, ceramics, architecture, landscape and set designs. Noguchi also believed strongly in art and design’s social role, and he thus dedicated much of his life to creating public works such as parks, plazas, and fountains throughout the world.
- Sources view
- Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Museum. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!310219~!0#focus
Clouette, Bruce (PAST, Inc.). 2000. CIGNA Complex National Register Nomination No. 09000324. National Park Service.
Conaway, Carrie. 7/19/2004. Who Should Bear the Cost of History? Schiff’s Insurance Observer.
Pace Gallery. http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/334/isamu-noguchi
The Noguchi Museum web site. http://www.noguchi.org/noguchi/biography - Associated Resource(s)