46. A PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO GO

  1. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 80.

  2. IN, proposal sent to the Horace E. Dodge Fountain Selection Committee, August 1971, NA.

  3. IN, “The Road I Have Walked,” 103.

  4. Beamer/Wilkinson & Associates, an electrical and mechanical engineering firm based in Oakland, California, was intimately involved in the Detroit project. Others who assisted with the technological aspects were Louis W. Klei of the Department of Public Works of the City Engineers Office, and Paul Weidlinger, a good friend of Noguchi’s and a prominent structural engineer. In addition, Robert Hastings’s architectural firm, Smith, Hinchman & Grylls Associates, served as structural, mechanical, and electrical consultants.

  5. Smith, Hinchman & Grylls Associates Inc., News, March 30, 1973, NA. Noguchi was not just waxing poetic when he spoke of the relationship of his fountain to airplanes. In a 1971 letter to Sadao he wrote, “it occurred to me that the structure was very similar to that of the aeroplane wing in its relation to the fuselage.”

  6. Peter Benjamin, “River Plaza to Be Park—Not Monument,” Detroit Free Press, March 31, 1973, NA.

  7. IN, letter to Priscilla Morgan, September 16, 1973.

  8. Martin Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 80.

  9. Robert S. Wisler, “Mystery Tower Is Dedicated,” The Detroit News, August 29, 1974.

10. Ibid.

11. Detroit Free Press, August 29, 1974, clipping, NA.

12. Marsha Miro, “What Noguchi’s Genius Has Brought to Detroit,” Detroit Free Press, April 29, 1979.

13. Joy Hakanson Colby, “Hart Plaza: Noguchi’s Finest Hour,” The Detroit News, April 15, 1979.

14. Luis M. Heldman, “Nice Day, Hidden Dirt and Fountain,” Detroit Free Press, April 21, 1979.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. Sandra Earley, “Noguchi,” The Miami Herald, August 11, 1985.

18. Duus, 330.

19. Ashton, 212.

20. IN, preface, The Sculpture of Spaces.

21. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 85.

22. Bruce W. Bassett, Sculptors at Storm King: Seven Modern Masters, 2000.

23. Mus. Cat., 204.

24. There are two versions of how the Storm King sculpture got its title. In one version the idea of calling it Momo Taro came up when Noguchi was carving the round cavity on one of the faces of the split boulder. “When the hole was carved, everyone said, ‘Oh, that’s Momotaro.’” The other version maintains that even before the stone was split there was a hollow cavity inside the granite boulder, and when, upon splitting the boulder, the stonecutters discovered it, they exclaimed, “Momotaro!”

25. In Shinto mythology, the sun goddess Amaterasu fled into a cave because her younger brother, god of the seas, was wreaking havoc on earth. Her absence caused darkness to fall on Japan. To lure her out, the gods hung a mirror on a tree outside her cave. Amaterasu emerged and sunlight was restored. She bequeathed the mirror to her descendant Ninigi, and this sacred mirror, part of the imperial regalia, is stored in the Ise shrine, which is dedicated to Amaterasu.

26. Bruce W. Bassett, Isamu Noguchi, documentary film, 1980.

27. Ashton, 278.

28. Elizabeth Pond, “Isamu Noguchi,” interview with IN, part I, The Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 1973, NA.

29. Bruce W. Bassett, Sculptors at Storm King: Seven Modern Masters Reveal Their Creative Adventure, documentary film, October 1988.

47. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES

  1. IN, letter to Martin Friedman, May 17, 1977, NA.

  2. Martin Friedman, letter to IN, May 20, 1977, NA.

  3. Priscilla Morgan, interviewed by the author, New York City, April 17, 2008.

  4. IN, letter to Fanny Rumely, August 8, 1978, LL.

  5. Martin Friedman, interviewed by the author, New York, January 16, 2008.

  6. Hilton Kramer, “The Purist of Living Sculptors,” The New York Times, May 21, 1978, 33.

  7. Allan Temko, exhibition reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 1979, and in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, August 12, 1979.

  8. Ann Holmes, “Noguchi Designs Planned MFA Garden,” Houston Chronicle, September 30, 1983.

  9. Carol J. Everingam, “A Place for Sculpture,” The Houston Post, April 20, 1985, 26.

10. IN, letter to J. Patrick Lannan, January 6, 1977, NA.

11. IN, letter to Peter Marzio, April 25, 1983, NA.

12. Susan Chadwick, “Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden,” The Houston Post, March 30, 1986.

13. Quoted in “Sketchbook,” Art and Antiques (Summer 1986), clipping, NA.

14. Teresa Byrne-Dodge, “A Geometry of Playfulness: The Cullen Sculpture garden at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts,” Southern Accents, October 1986, 112, NA.

15. Interview with IN, January 3, 1986, press material for the April 6, 1986, opening of Noguchi’s Houston garden, NA.

16. William Wilson, “Noguchi Comes Home,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1979.

17. Tim Fukai, “Sculptor Isamu Noguchi Comes Home to Little Tokyo,” August 24, 1983, unidentified newspaper, clipping, NA.

18. Miles Kubo, “Noguchi Sculpture Highlights JACCC Plaza,” clipping, NA.

19. Penny Balkin Bach, interviewed by the author, Philadelphia, February 14, 2008. Noguchi’s memory of the Benjamin Franklin memorial’s inclusion in the Philadelphia show is slightly different. In 1987 he wrote that the model, rather than the drawing, was in the show. (He remembered wrong.) He said that a reporter discovered a 1934 clipping showing the design and that this caught the eye of the FPAA and led to the commission. Mus. Cat., 144.

20. Anne d’Harnoncourt, interviewed by the author.

21. Douglas C. McGill, “A Sculpture by Noguchi Dedicated in Philadelphia,” The New York Times, September 19, 1984.

22. Ibid.

23. Thomas Hine, “A Flashy Birthday Gift to Philadelphia,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 10, 1982, Section B, 1 and 4, NA.

24. Penny Balkin Bach, interviewed by the author.

25. Quoted in The New York Times, September 16, 1984, clipping, NA.

26. Thomas Hine, “A Pipe Dream Coming True,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 1983.

27. Thomas Hine, “A Pipe Dream Come True,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 1983.

28. Edgar Williams, “Ben’s Bolt,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 1984.

29. Ibid.

30. Edward J. Sozanski, review in The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 15, 1984.

31. The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1984, clipping, NA.

48. CALIFORNIA SCENARIO

  1. Cathy Curtis, interview with Henry Segerstrom, “Sculptor’s Spirit Lives in Garden,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1989.

  2. Henry Segerstrom, letter to IN, December 3, 1979, NA.

  3. Tamara Thomas, letter to IN, January 17, 1980, NA. Tamara Thomas’s letters to IN and his letters to her are in NA.

  4. Suzanne Muchnic, “Noguchi’s Garden: An Earth-Moving Project,” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1982.

  5. Tamara Thomas, letter to IN, February 3, 1980.

  6. Henry Segerstrom, letter to Tamara Thomas, March 28, 1980, NA.

  7. Muchnic, “Noguchi’s Garden.”

  8. IN, letter to Rick Anderson, August 1, 1980, NA.

  9. Cathy Curtis, “Sculptor’s Spirit Lives in Garden.”

10. Photocopy of South Coast Plaza project data, Two Town Center, NA.

11. Photocopy of a South Coast Plaza publication, 135, NA.

12. Ibid.

13. IN, letter to Paul J. Ruffing, July 23, 1984, NA.

14. Ibid.

15. California Scenario’s elements are described in a brochure in NA.

16. Friedman, Imaginary Landscapes, 55.

17. IN, letter to Kenneth Kammeyer, October 18, 1981, NA.

18. IN, letter to Henry Segerstrom, April 2, 1982, NA.

19. Muchnic, “Noguchi’s Garden.”

20. Allan Temko, “Noguchi’s California Parable,” San Francisco Review of Books, September 26, 1982, 12.

21. Peter Clothier, “Costa Mesa, Isamu Noguchi, South Coast Town Center,” Artforum (April 1982), NA.

22. Mus. Cat., 182.