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Isamu NoguchiNuska, Portrait of a Girl, unique bronze portrait by Isamu Noguchi 19241924
1924
About the Item
Nuska, Portrait of a Girl, bronze portrait, 1924, unique
Isamu Noguchi (Japanese American 1904 - 1988); "Nuska, The Deaf Girl"; cire perdu cast bronze with complex dark patina on bronze base; 15 x lOx 8 inches; base 4.5 x 5.75 x 5,75 inches; signature quilled under and at back - "Isamu"; foundry stamp quilled in wax at the back - "Roman Bronze Works N.Y."
Excellent condition.
"Nuska, The Deaf Girl" is included in the Catalogue Raisonne of Noguchi's sculpture by Nancy Grove and Dianne Botnick (Garland, 1980) as Number 21. It is currently listed in the digital catalogue being assembled by the Isamu Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York as Number 10. This is apparently a unique casting, not part of an edition.
This is an apparently early, cire perdu bronze cast by Roman Bronze Works, probably when the foundry was located in the Louis Comfort Tiffany red brick factory in Corona, Queens, New York where it moved in 1927. Known for casting the works of Daniel Chester French, Henry Augustus Lukeman, Augustus Saint- Gaudens, Frederic Remington and Charles Russell as well as the Heisman Trophy, Roman Bronze Works has always been considered the finest American foundry for the quality of its casting, chasing and patination. Certainly, the patina on the subject Noguchi sculpture is of exceptional uniformity and dep and the surfaces are without flaw.
Valerie Fletcher, curator of the Hirshhorn-Whitney show for Isamu Noguchi, says:
”He created so many pieces in so many media, it was almost impossible to take
in. I think it took a while for people to get a handle on the sheer scope of his art and focus on what went beyond trends."
A major portion of Isamu Noguchi’s work was portrait busts in several materials. This was largely responsible for his early fame. Between 1924 and 1950 he executed well over one hundred portraits.
Among his subjects were Clare Boothe Luce, Thornton Wilder, Ginger Rogers, Martha Graham, R. Buckminster Fuller, Fernand Leger and dozens of other people. The earliest busts from 1924 and 1927 were done in the artist's studio in Manhattan. From 1927 to 1929 Noguchi lived in Paris, serving as a studio assistant to Constantin Brancusi. He exhibited his first abstract sculptures done in Paris in New York’s Eugene Schoen Gallery in 1929.
- Creator:Isamu Noguchi (1904 - 1988, Japanese, American)
- Creation Year:1924
- Dimensions:Height: 15 in (38.1 cm)Width: 10 in (25.4 cm)Depth: 8 in (20.32 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Santa Fe, NM
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU19122419933
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.
For collectors, Noguchi’s furniture and lighting designs remain his most accessible work — they have the same power and presence that Noguchi brought to his art.
Find vintage Isamu Noguchi floor lamps, table lamps, coffee tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.
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