Unglazed Seto red stoneware
In Apartment, Noguchi imagines the space of the home, populating the vertical building with small figures and domestic objects. “The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence,” wrote Noguchi in 1946. Born in Los Angeles, raised in Japan, and based out of New York during his adult life, the artist became engaged in political activism on behalf of the Japanese American community following the attacks on Pearl Harbor. After the war, he traveled to Japan for the first time in decades. It was on a 1952 trip to Kamakura while visiting ceramic artist Kitaoji Rosanjin that Noguchi created Apartment.
521: American Idioms, 2025
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American Idioms
Gallery 521From the Great Depression through World War II, the United States experienced a period of turbulence and transformation. Informed by shifting social and economic dynamics at home and abroad, artists developed unique approaches to narrative art in diverse styles and mediums.
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