Isamu Noguchi Akari Floor Lamp ST2-35N

Price:$5,495

About the Item

This is an exceptional floor lamp. Designed by Isamu Noguchi and made by Ozeki & Co in Gifu, Japan. Model ST2-35N. The lampshade is created from handmade washi paper and bamboo ribbing, supported by a steel frame. Excellent condition (new old stock), never used. Comes in original packaging. Impressed with makers mark on the base. The shade is marked with the old stamp (pictured). Light source: 2 light bulbs (E26/E27 screw bulbs). American / Japanese electrical plug. Power switch on the cord. Akari Light Sculptures by Isamu Noguchi are considered icons of 1950s modern design. Designed by Noguchi beginning in 1951 and handmade for a half century by the original manufacturer in Gifu, Japan, the paper lanterns are a harmonious blend of Japanese handcraft and modernist form. Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, landscapes, and set designs. His work, at once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts. Noguchi, an internationalist, traveled extensively throughout his life. (In his later years he maintained studios both in Japan and New York.) He discovered the impact of large-scale public works in Mexico, earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush techniques in China, and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsa wood, bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite, and water. When Noguchi’s mother Léonie Gilmour met his father, she was a young writer and editor living in New York City. Gilmour was a white American of mostly Irish descent born in Brooklyn. His father Yonejiro Noguchi, an itinerant Japanese poet, was Asian. Noguchi was born in Los Angeles, but moved to Japan with his mother at the age of two and lived there until the age of thirteen. In the summer of 1918, Noguchi returned alone to the United States to attend high school in Rolling Prairie and then La Porte, Indiana, adding yet another layer to an increasingly complex identity. (He proudly identified as a “Hoosier” for the rest of his life.) After high school he moved to Connecticut to work briefly for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, and then to New York City to attend Columbia University. While enrolled there as a premedical student, he also began taking evening sculpture classes on New York’s Lower East Side with the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo at the Leonardo da Vinci School of Art. He soon left the university to become an academic sculptor, supporting himself by making his first portrait busts. In 1926, Noguchi saw an exhibition in New York of the work of Constantin Brancusi that profoundly changed his artistic direction. With a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Noguchi went to Paris, and in 1927 worked in Brancusi’s studio. Inspired by the older artist’s forms and philosophy, Noguchi turned to modernism and abstraction, infusing his highly finished pieces with a lyrical and emotional expressiveness, and with an aura of mystery. Returning to New York City as well as traveling extensively in Asia, Mexico, and Europe in the late 1920s through the 1930s, Noguchi survived on portrait sculpture and design commissions, proposed landscape works and playgrounds, and intersected and engaged in collaborations with a wide range of luminaries. Noguchi’s work was not well-known in the United States until 1940, when he completed a large-scale sculpture symbolizing the freedom of the press, which was commissioned in 1938 for the Associated Press Building in Rockefeller Center, New York City. This was the first of what would eventually become numerous celebrated public works worldwide, ranging from playgrounds to plazas, gardens to fountains, all reflecting his belief in the social significance of sculpture. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the backlash against Japanese Americans in the United States had a dramatic personal effect on Noguchi, motivating him to become a political activist. In 1942, he cofounded Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy, a group dedicated to raising awareness of the patriotism of Japanese Americans; and voluntarily entered the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) concentration camp in Arizona where he remained for six months. Following his release, Noguchi set up a studio at 33 MacDougal Alley in Greenwich Village, New York City, where he returned to stone sculpture as well as prolific explorations of new materials and methods. His ideas and feelings are reflected in his works of that period, particularly the delicate slab sculptures included in the 1946 exhibition Fourteen Americans at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Noguchi did not belong to any particular movement, but collaborated with artists working in a range of disciplines and schools. He created stage sets as early as 1935 for Martha Graham, beginning a lifelong collaboration; as well as for Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, and George Balanchine and composer John Cage. In the 1960s, Noguchi began working with stone carver Masatoshi Izumi on the island of Shikoku, Japan; a collaboration that would also continue for the rest of his life. From 1961 to 1966, he worked on a playground design with the architect Louis Kahn. Whenever given the opportunity to venture into the mass-production of his designs, Noguchi seized it. In 1937, he designed a Bakelite intercom for the Zenith Radio Corporation, and in 1947, his glass-topped table was produced by Herman Miller. This design and others—such as his designs for Akari light sculptures which were initially developed in 1951 using traditional Japanese materials—are still being produced today. In 1985, Noguchi opened The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (now known as The Noguchi Museum), in Long Island City, New York. The Museum, established and designed by the artist, marked the culmination of his commitment to public spaces. Located in a 1920s industrial building across the street from where the artist had established a studio in 1960, it has a serene outdoor sculpture garden, and many galleries that display Noguchi’s work, along with photographs, drawings, and models from his career. He also indicated that his studio in Mure, Japan, be preserved to inspire artists and scholars; a wish that was fulfilled with the opening of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan in 1999. Noguchi’s first retrospective in the United States was in 1968, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. In 1986, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. Noguchi received the Edward MacDowell Medal for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to the Arts in 1982; the Kyoto Prize in Arts in 1986; the National Medal of Arts in 1987; and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government in 1988. He died in New York City in 1988.

Creator:
Ozeki & Co. Ltd. 1 (Manufacturer),Isamu Noguchi (Designer)
Design:
Akari Light Sculpture
Dimensions:
Height: 75.01 in (190.5 cm)Width: 18.12 in (46 cm)Depth: 18.12 in (46 cm)
Power Source:
Plug-in
Voltage:
110-150v,220-240v
Lampshade:
Included
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Bamboo,Paper,Steel
Place of Origin:
Japan
Period:
2000-2009
Date of Manufacture:
2000s
Condition:
Seller Location:
Malmö, SE
Reference Number:
Seller: 10711stDibs: LU8317250388122

Shop All Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi

A sculptor, painter, ceramicist and furniture and lighting designer, Isamu Noguchi was one of the most prolific and protean creative forces of the 20th century and a key figure in the development of organic modernism. Noguchi’s sculptures and designs — his chairs and tables as well as his timeless Akari lamp and other lighting fixtures — share a common spirit: one of lyrical abstraction, tempo and flow and harmonious balance.

Noguchi was born in Los Angeles to an American mother and Japanese father, and spent most of his childhood in Japan. He returned to the United States at age 13, went to high school in Indiana and enrolled at Columbia University to study medicine. At the same time, he took night courses in sculpture.

Within three months, Noguchi left college to pursue art full time. Noguchi was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927 and traveled to Paris to work under Constantin Brancusi. It marked a turning point. Inspired by Brancusi, Noguchi embraced abstraction and began to sculpt in the expressive, rhythmic style that would be the hallmark of his work.

Once back in New York, Noguchi was introduced to design by what would become a lifelong collaboration creating sets for choreographer Martha Graham. His first industrial designs were in Bakelite: the sleek Measured Time kitchen timer created circa 1932, and his famed Zenith Radio Nurse intercom, from 1937.

Ten years later, Herman Miller introduced Noguchi’s now-iconic glass-topped coffee table with an articulated wooden base. His washi paper and bamboo Akari light sculptures, handmade in Japan, debuted in 1951. In the late 1950s, Noguchi designed for Knoll, creating such pieces as his dynamic Cyclone table and rocking stool.

Materials

Steel

Materials

Steel

Iconic Furniture Gives These 1stDibs 50 Rooms Timeless Appeal

A well-made armchair, table or pendant lamp can afford both comfort and convenience. An exceptional one can transform a space. See how the honorees on this year’s 1stDibs 50 list of top interior designers used standout pieces to create the kind of rooms you never want to leave.

A New Exhibition Spotlights the Nuance of 1940s Art and Design

Works by a range of designers and artists prove that the constraints of the time didn't stifle creativity.

Isamu Noguchi Akari Floor Lamp ST2-35N

About the Item

Akari Light Sculpture

Isamu Noguchi

You May Also Like

21st Century and Contemporary Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Mid-20th Century Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

21st Century and Contemporary Japanese Anglo-Japanese Floor Lamps

Mid-20th Century Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Mid-20th Century Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Vintage 1960s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Vintage 1950s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Vintage 1950s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Mid-20th Century Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

More From This Seller

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and Pendants

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps

Early 2000s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps

Read More

Iconic Furniture Gives These 1stDibs 50 Rooms Timeless Appeal

A New Exhibition Spotlights the Nuance of 1940s Art and Design