35. UNESCO: A SOMEWHAT JAPANESE GARDEN

  1. The other two architects involved in the project were the Italian Pier Luigi Nervi and the Parisian Bernard Zehrfuss. The former is thought to have concerned himself mainly with the engineering aspect of the project, and the latter played the role of executive architect. Marc Treib, Noguchi in Paris: The Unesco Garden (San Francisco: William Stout, 2003), 133.

  2. Michel-Louis Conil, “Le Jardin de Noguchi,” Information and Documents 110 (October 1959): 18–20.

  3. Sc W, 166.

  4. Treib, Noguchi in Paris, 134.

  5. IN, “Garden of Peace: Unesco Gardens in Paris,” in Essays and Conversations, 61.

  6. KK, 111.

  7. Sc W, 165.

  8. Ibid., 165–66.

  9. IN, letter to Toru Hagiwara, January 9, 1957, NA. Noguchi’s correspondence with Hagiwara and other officials about the UNESCO garden is in NA.

10. Toru Hagiwara, letter to IN, January 15, 1957.

11. IN, letter to Michel Dard, January 8, 1957.

12. IN, letter to Ambassador Farugaki, March 9, 1957.

13. Sc W, 166.

14. The first of these letters telling Noguchi not to come to Paris came in May. Hernan Vieco of the Paris office of Breuer, Nervi and Zehrfuss wrote telling him to postpone his arrival for two months. Noguchi wrote back that Vieco’s letter had arrived too late and that he had planned to start work on the garden that summer. He said that he had “done the impossible” to get the stones shipped and that they would arrive in Marseille on July 21. He planned to come to Paris on July 3, in time to cope with the stones’ arrival. He received several more letters and cables, all asking him to postpone. Noguchi persisted in his plan. On June 15 he wrote Vieco again, saying that the stones had been shipped and that he would arrive in Paris on July 3. On June 25 the acting secretary of the Committee of Artistic Advisers wrote him that Breuer was “strongly in favor of your delaying your arrival in Paris until March 1958. He thinks that it would be a great mistake to have you start on your project before the masonry, foundation works, the pond and rough grading of the garden and patio are ready for you and the construction of the third building sufficiently advanced so as not to hinder your work.” Noguchi replied on July 1 that he was perplexed: “What can I do until then, and what is to become of the garden?” He said that one of his problems with postponing was financial, “in that I had determined to invest this year with no pay commensurate to what I have been spending toward the realization of an ideal.”

15. IN, letter to Marcel Breuer, July 2, 1957, NA.

16. IN, letter to Hernan Vieco, July 4, 1957.

17. Sc W, 166–67.

18. Duus, 281. The letters from Noguchi to Miyoko Urushihara are quoted in Duus, 281–82.

19. Touemon Sano, “A Work Reflecting the History of Our Friendship,” in Isamu Noguchi, Human Aspect, 68–69.

20. Ashton, 147.

21. Alhalel, “Conversation with Isamu Noguchi,” 35.

22. KK, 11.

23. IN, in UNESCO House News 22, October 18, 1957, 5, NA.

24. IN, essay on his UNESCO garden in Essays and Conversations, 61–62.

25. IN, “The Sculpture of Spaces,” 21.

26. Sc W, 165–66.

27. Ashton, 147.

28. André Chastel, “Paris Unesco Building Stirs Controversy,” The New York Times, January 4, 1959.

29. Treib, Noguchi in Paris, 122–23.

30. IN, letter to John Entenza, November 18, 1958, NA.

36. CHANGED VISIONS

  1. Sc W, 35.

  2. Mus. Cat., 11.

  3. Sc W, 35.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid., 36.

  6. Shoji Sadao, interviewed by the author, Long Island City, NY, March 2007. All quotes from Sadao come from this interview.

  7. Sc W, 36.

  8. Ibid., 37.

  9. Ibid., 36.

10. “Floating,” Newsweek 57, no. 21, May 22, 1961, NA.

11. IN, “On the Structure and Carving of Bronze Plate.”

12. Shoji Sadao, interviewed by the author.

13. Sc W, 35.

14. Ibid., 36.

15. Ibid.

16. Emily Genauer, “Japan, Mexico and Far North Provide Week’s New Exhibits,” The New York Times, June 1959, clipping, NA.

17. Fairfield Porter, review, Art News 58, no. 4 (Summer 1959).

18. Mus. Cat., 90.

19. Ibid., 88.

20. Sc W, 37.

21. Mus. Cat., 90.

37. PRISCILLA

  1. Priscilla Morgan, interviewed by the author, New York City, May 23, 2006. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from Priscilla Morgan come from this and several subsequent interviews with Priscilla Morgan.

  2. Jean Nathan, “The Miracle Worker,” Vogue, December 2007, 236.

  3. Priscilla Morgan’s letters to Noguchi and his letters to her are in Priscilla Morgan’s personal archive.

  4. Sc W, 37.

  5. IN, letter to Gordon Bunschaft, April 27, 1960, NA.

  6. Ibid., May 26, 1960, NA.

  7. Sc W, 169.

  8. IN, “The Sculpture of Spaces,” 21.

  9. Sc W, 37.

10. Quoted in E.G. (Emily Genauer), “Noguchi’s ‘Weightlessness,’” New York Herald Tribune, May 21, 1961.

11. Stuart Preston, The New York Times, May 21, 1961, clipping, NA.

12. Emily Genauer, “Noguchi’s ‘Weightlessness,’” Herald Tribune, May 21, 1961.

13. Lawrence Campbell, “Reviews and Previews,” Art News 60, no. 4 (Summer 1961).

38. WORKING WITH NOGUCHI

  1. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 65.

  2. IN, “The Road I Have Walked,” 102.

  3. Sc W, 170–71.

  4. Mus. Cat., 164.

  5. Gene Owens’s letters are in his personal archive. I am grateful to him for sending me copies of these letters and other documents, such as his diary notes from the months he worked with IN and other texts.

  6. Gene Owens, telephone interviews with the author, May 17, 2009, and July 18, 2009.

  7. Owens, handwritten manuscript.

  8. Owens, letter to the author, n.d.

  9. Owens, handwritten manuscript.

39. LEVITATING ROCKS, WINGS OF PRAYER

  1. Sc W, 171.

  2. John Gruen, “Japanese Garden for Wall Street,” The New York Times, September 13, 1963.

  3. Sc W, 171.

  4. “Total Sculpture,” New York, December 14, 1963, clipping, NA.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Harriet Senie, “Urban Sculpture: Cultural Tokens or Ornaments to Life?” Art News 78, no. 7 (September 1979): 108–14.

  8. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 67.

  9. Sc W, 174.

10. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 67.

11. Unidentified newspaper, n.d., clipping, NA.

12. Elaine Rosenfeld Weitzen, interviewed by the author, New York City, June 16, 2009.

13. Sc W, 172–73.

14. IN, “Sculpture Garden of the New National Museum in Jerusalem,” Arts and Architecture 77, no. 10 (October 1960): 22.

15. Draft of contract for Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, NA.

16. Charlotte Zwerin, Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpture of Spaces, documentary film, 1999.

17. Duus, 304.

18. IN, letter to Ralph I. Goldman, October 1962, NA.

19. IN, letter to Billy Rose, August 8, 1963, NA.

20. IN, letter to Hillel Fefferman, December 6, 1964, NA.

21. Sc W, 173.

22. IN, letter to Teddy Kollek, May 28, 1965, NA.

23. IN, letter to Karl Katz, August 9, 1965, NA.

24. IN, “A Sculpture Garden in Jerusalem,” in Essays and Conversations, 68–69.

25. IN, “A Garden That Is a Sculpture,” in Essays and Conversations, 70–71.

26. IN, “The Road I Have Walked,” 103–04.

40. TOWARD AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  1. Dimitri Hadzi, interviewed by the author, Wellfleet, MA, summer 2003, and New York City, January 2004.

  2. Sc W, 38.

  3. Mus. Cat., 122.

  4. Ibid., 88.

  5. Sc W, 40.

  6. Ibid., 38.

  7. Indeed, a January 22, 1958, letter from Kurt Wolff to Peter Gregory of the London publishing house Percy Lund Humphries said: “Personally, I had always hoped that Noguchi himself would do the text.” Diane Adler, typed summary of the exchanges among Noguchi, John Becker, and Pantheon Books in regard to the Noguchi autobiography, February 1962, NA.

  8. Helen Wolff, letter to Gerald Gross, March 7, 1960. See also Diane Adler, typed summary.

  9. IN, letter to John Becker, April 10, 1960, NA. The NA has several drafts of this letter, including a copy of the typed final draft. A handwritten draft with many passages crossed out has a more extensive defense of his role in the dispute.

10. IN, letter to Priscilla Morgan, January 24, 1963.