Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988)

Isamu Noguchi had three brief encounters with ceramics during his career: five months in Kyoto in 1931; one week in Seto in 1950; and several months in both Kita-Kamakura and Bizen in 1952. A Japanese-American artist who spent most of his life in the United States, Noguchi had a poetic relationship with the Japanese earth, writing in 1952: “I have only made pottery in Japan, never elsewhere. I think the earth here and the sentiment are suited to pottery” (I. Noguchi, quoted in R. Harle, “Isamu Noguchi and Modern Japanese Ceramics: A Close Embrace of the Earth (review)," Leonardo, vol. 37, no. 3, 2004, pp. 254-255).
On his third trip, to Kita-Kamakura and Bizen, Noguchi visited friends and ceramicists who not only provided him access to their kilns, but also guided his practice. Home to one of the oldest pottery making techniques in Japan, the city of Bizen has a distinctive ware characterized by a hidasuki surface, which burnishes straws to create linear marks across the surface. These can be seen across the center of the Geta Dish, fired in a wood kiln by Noguchi’s host in Bizen, Kaneshige Toyo. Similarly, Noguchi created Face Dish while staying with ceramicist Kitaoki Rosanjin in Kita-Kamakura. The Kita-Kamakura period ceramics are distinguished by an inscribed signature of the Japanese Hiragana symbol for the sound “no”, shortening the artist’s name to the sound of the first syllable. 600 kilometers east in Bizen, Noguchi would also inscribe his Geta Dish with this signature. Thus, both of these rare objects speak to Noguchi's deep intimacy with his cultural history and willingness to say "no" to the mechanical commercialization of traditional handmade craft.