From Publishers Weekly
Sculptor Isamu Noguchi's work shows him to be a romantic pained by an acute sense of loss, suggests art historian Ashton in this biographical study. Illustrated. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This captivating biography of world-renowned sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi highlights his lifelong personal and artistic struggle to reconcile Western ideas with his traditional Oriental heritage. Guided by her personal insight and friendship with the artist, art critic Ashton focuses on Noguchi's travels in the United States and abroad, his diversified work as sculptor and designer of public and private gardens, theater sets and furniture, as well as his professional and social relationships with fellow artists Constantin Brancusi, Arshile Gorky, and Henry Moore; dancer Martha Graham; actor/director John Gielgud; composer John Cage; and engineer/inventor Buckminster Fuller. Recommended. (Illustrations and index not seen.)-- Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson CityCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Paul Taylor, New York Times Book Review
"Though Los Angeles-born sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi lived to be honored around the world, he was a multicultural, multimedia artist before it became fashionable, and he suffered for being ahead of his time."


Anne Truitt, Washington Post Book World
"Mythical figures attract ire, and Noguchi did indeed do so in the course of a long and tempestuous life, but he has been granted a compensatory grace in his biographer. Dore Ashton, an art historian whose distinction matches that of her subject, has written a fascinating account of 'the trajectory of his life.'"


From Kirkus Reviews
Ashton (Art History/Cooper Union; About Rothko, 1983, etc.) reverentially portrays the sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-88). He was a ``mythmaker'' and ``teller of tales,'' Ashton says, a ``spiritual voyager whose natural state is one of exile.'' Here, Ashton intricately delineates Noguchi's artistic quest, following the progress of his work and explaining the way he drew inspiration from countless sources--ancient and modern, American and Japanese, including Buckminster Fuller, Constantin Brancui, and William Blake; Martha Graham's dance, Noh drama, and the temples and gardens of Kyoto. The tensions of a dual heritage were played out in Noguchi's life. His father was an American-educated Japanese poet who left his American wife before the future sculptor was born. Noguchi spent his childhood in Japan, went to boarding school in Indiana, then returned to Japan--only to be rejected by his father, who'd dropped his westernizing for militant nationalism. Figuratively, too, the artist traveled back and forth. Ashton discusses countless Noguchi works--such as the sets for Martha Graham's Frontier (1935), gardens at UNESCO in Paris and at Yale, a plaza in Detroit, and his compound on the island of Shikoku. But she plays variations on her central points so many times that the reader feels too literally ``the elliptical aspect of his life'' rather than the cosmic weight of his achievement. Trying to make up for critical neglect, and skeptical of ``the connection between personal circumstance and art,'' Ashton seems too dazzled to cut through the sculptor's myth-making to the man, described late in the book as ``willful'' and possessing ``demonic drive.'' And why does she spend fewer than two pages on Noguchi's brief marriage to controversial Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi? Illuminating to a point on Noguchi's difficult-to-categorize work, and undoubtedly enriched by 91 b&w and 8 color photographs (some seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Herbert Muschamp, The New Republic
"Dore Ashton has written an engaging full-length portrait of an artist who explored cultural relationships to define himself."


Book Description
The life of the Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was an unending spiritual and physical voyage between the two cultures of his birthright. In this definitive biography and critical study, Dore Ashton maps Noguchi's spiritual journey both in the events of his life and in the milestones of his art: the sculptures, gardens, public spaces, and stage decors that gained force and significance from his double heritage.


About the Author
Dore Ashton is Professor of Art History at the Cooper Union and author or editor of 30 books on art and culture including The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning, A Critical Study of Philip Guston, and A Fable of Modern Art, available from University of California Press.

ANNOTATION

An art history professor and author or editor of 30 books on art and culture maps the life of Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) and his spiritual journey, both in the events of his life and in the milestones of his art--the sculptures, gardens, public spaces, and stage decors that gained force and significance from Noguchi's double heritage. Photographs.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The life of the Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was an uning spiritual and physical voyage between the two cultures of his birthright. In this definitive biography and critical study, Dore Ashton maps Noguchi's spiritual journey both in the events of his life and in the milestones of his art: the sculptures, gardens, public spaces, and stage decors that gained force and significance from his double heritage.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Sculptor Isamu Noguchi's work shows him to be a romantic pained by an acute sense of loss, suggests art historian Ashton in this biographical study. Illustrated. (June)

Library Journal