Isamu Noguchi

The Pace Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in December 1985

New York, Pace Gallery, Noguchi New Sculpture, May - June 1983
Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, An American Renaissance, January - March 1986, p. 60, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. On the stone, there is a small amount of white residue surrounding the tip located on the far left bottom front corner. There are red markings near transitions from the rough to smooth areas, perhaps done by the artist as guidelines for carving the stone. There is also two small old losses to the stone, located as follows: --along the bottom edge, 27 – 28 inches from the right as photographed --a small loss extending out from the center smallest grooved depressions, with attendant cracks that appear stable, located 5 1/2 - 6 in. from the top and 21 - 21 1/2 in. from the right. On the wood base, there is some wear to the bottom and top corners as is to be expected. There is also some overall minor natural lifting and splitting due to the aging process of the wood, as well as some evidence of past pest activity between layers in the wood. One crack has sprung slightly out of plane, located on the left leg as illustrated, on the outer face extending 2 to 13 inches down from the top and 1 to 2 inches in from the edge. A skim coating, slightly reddish in tone, appears to have addressed several of these imperfections in the wood overall. On the insde facing side of the left leg (as photographed), there are a few old horizontal scratches and slight gauging that occur intermittently 4 - 8 1/2 in. from the back and 3 - 3 3/4 in. from the bottom. On the inside of right leg there is some similar gauging located 3 - 6 1/4 in from the front and 9 - 12 in. from the bottom possibly related to artist construction. Evidence of wear on the outside of the right leg 4 1/2 - 10 1/2 in. from the back and 4 - 5 in. from the bottom. Please note the wooden artist’s base is upside down in the catalogue illustration.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Isamu Noguchi's deep respect for primitive devices and designs is clearly illustrated in the artist's Basin and Range from 1981.  In this late work from the artist's career, the carved stone reveals its form organically while also appearing to be a remnant of ancient civilization.  There is a mystery to the stone - its malleability and density are at once exposed and resolved in the present work.  Conceptually Noguchi was the consummate modernist as he eliminated the inessential through formal reduction, upholding the honesty of materials and structure, incorporating non-western sources and, in the late works in particular, utilizing collaboration with chance and accident.  In the last 20 years of his life, Noguchi spent two periods of three months each year in the small village of Mure on the Japanese island of Shikoku and during each stay he worked exclusively with stone.  The setting was rural and of considerable natural beauty and isolation.  It was here that Noguchi began to work improvisationally – interacting with materials differently and not working directly from models – a great departure from his early apprenticeship to Constantin Brancusi and his work with marble and bronze.  In Mure, Noguchi even went so far as to work with accidents from previous projects to reinvent them into new works.  Like Giverny for Monet, Mure created ideal conditions for Noguchi's late works.

Basin and Range reveals Noguchi's play with organic naturalism and his extreme sensitivity to his materials.  He unlocked the fragility and mutability of granite even as he respected and developed its aspect of grave permanence.  The smooth finish of the inside of the basin is a beautiful contrast to the natural roughly hewn face of the Mihara granite and a testament to man's ongoing struggle with form, process and metamorphosis of space.  Noguchi was also preoccupied with minimalist sculpture as a physical manifestation of space and time, as represented in works by Judd, Andre and others through repetition and seriality. These concepts are rendered in the present work through the series of light gray verticals incised in the granite that also recall ancient systems for marking time.  Noguchi saw the ancient less in opposition to technology and the present; rather he saw it as fundamental even in our current civilization.  This duality helped him to establish a basis for perpetual reinvention; in the constancy of tradition he discovered uncharted realms for sculptural innovation.  Noguchi viewed the massive variation of form within sculpture as its primary innovation.  In a 1952 essay he contrasted photography and painting with his own chosen art form: "Sculpture on the other hand is the thing itself – to be physically experienced – the sensual actuality of sight re-enforced through the added sense of touch.  We may bump into it, bleed from its rough surface, or delineate its contours with our fingers...The very materiality of sculpture is perhaps its most evocative aspect – the mystery at the base of the matter.'' (reprinted in Isamu Noguchi, Essays and Conversations, New York, 1994, p. 37 – 38)