Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904. Although he spent his childhood in Japan, he returned alone to the United States at the age of fourteen. In 1924, he enrolled in the School of Medicine at Columbia University to study pre-medical sciences, while also attending evening sculpture classes at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School on New York’s Lower East Side.
In 1927, Noguchi received a Guggenheim Fellowship and traveled to Paris, where he gained valuable experience, including serving for approximately six months as an assistant to the sculptor Constantin Brâncuși. During a return visit to Japan in 1931, he encountered ceramics and was deeply inspired by haniwa figures and Zen gardens.
In 1972, Noguchi established a studio in Mure, Kagawa Prefecture, an area famous for the granite known as Aji stone, which he greatly admired. There he began a long partnership with the master stone carver Masatoshi Izumi. In 1984, Columbia University awarded him an honorary doctorate, and in 1985 he founded the The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York.
In 1986, he represented the United States at the 42nd Venice Biennale. The following year, he received the National Medal of Arts from U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In 1988, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon by the Japanese government. He passed away later that same year in New York.
In 1999, the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan opened in Mure, Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, where Noguchi had maintained one of his principal production bases.