PEM presents a new major retrospective on the design work of Isamu Noguchi

Boundless creativity

This first major survey of Noguchi’s design practice in nearly a generation features rare objects, iconic works and archival materials spanning more than six decades of creative exploration. Visitors will encounter celebrated designs alongside lesser-known projects that illuminate Noguchi’s social consciousness and his belief in art’s civic and humanistic role. Noguchi exemplified an interdisciplinary, social-minded approach to being an artist-designer, and his never-ending search for modes of expression reflected his singular approach and worldview.

“Isamu Noguchi transformed how we understand the relationship between art, design and daily life. He designed with the purpose of improving the way people live,” said Ruthie Dibble, PEM’s Robert N. Shapiro Curator of American Decorative Art and the exhibition’s coordinating curator. “PEM is honored to present this major retrospective, which invites audiences to consider how creativity shapes our shared spaces and responds to the most pressing ideas of our moment.” 

Cross-cultural exchange

Born in Los Angeles to a Japanese father and an Irish American mother, Noguchi was a citizen of the world who drew inspiration from global traditions and modern innovations, producing a body of work that challenged conventional definitions of sculpture and design. Though Noguchi famously insisted, “I am not a designer,” he dedicated himself to producing functional objects and spaces influenced by his global travel, the natural world and historical events.

Noguchi’s practice bridged cultures and disciplines, drawing from Japanese craft traditions, European modernism and American innovation. His designs — from sculptural furniture to visionary playgrounds — demonstrate how art can foster connection, encourage exploration and enrich public life. Noguchi traveled extensively throughout his life and, for the last two decades of his life, maintained studios in Japan and New York. He discovered impactful large-scale public works in Mexico, earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush techniques in China and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsa wood, bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite and water.

Exhibition highlights

The objects and aesthetics Noguchi created remain incredibly influential and popular today. Visitors will  leave the exhibition with a spark of curiosity about how good design enhances their lives. The exhibition features nearly 200 objects, many never or rarely exhibited, spanning all facets of his creative output. Highlights include the artists’ designs for Akari light sculptures, initially developed in 1951 using traditional Japanese materials and still produced today. Other highlights include sculptural models of potential and unrealized projects, such as the recently rediscovered plaster for Play Mountain (1933), tables and stools designed for manufacturers like Herman Miller and Knoll and a house model Noguchi designed in collaboration with architect Kazumi Adachi. 

Perhaps no other single object has become more synonymous with Noguchi as a designer than the IN-50 Coffee Table. Unlike Noguchi’s previous, bespoke experiments with creating tables for private patrons, this design was put into mass production by furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, facilitating its rise to international acclaim and ubiquity. The table has been in near continuous production since 1947. 

Akari lamps represent the culmination of Noguchi’s career-spanning quest to more broadly share the delight he found in illuminated sculptures. At the suggestion of the mayor of Gifu, Japan, a capital of traditional mulberry paper lanterns (chōchin), Noguchi began designing his own variations on the form, preserving the traditional translucent mino washi paper shade and bamboo frame but introducing an electric bulb. He called these Akari, after the Japanese word conveying both illumination and weightlessness. The exhibition showcases over a dozen different Akari designs innovated by Noguchi. Like the IN-50, Akari sculptures remain icons of modernist design.

Visitors to PEM’s presentation will explore thematic sections highlighting Noguchi’s creative process, his collaborations with architects and choreographers, and his enduring influence on contemporary design and environmental art. Visitors will encounter several large-scale installations, notably the stage set for choreographer Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring (1944), one of Noguchi’s original designs of play equipment and a commissioned film capturing atmospheric footage and ambient sound in some of Noguchi’s site-specific plazas and gardens in Costa Mesa, California; Paris, France; and Detroit, Michigan. A section  exploring Noguchi’s designs for parks, playgrounds and public spaces reveals a body of work that powerfully demonstrates the artist’s commitment to making art that is “a vital force in our everyday life.” An interactive near the end of the exhibition asks visitors to design their own playground or public park.

In a section dedicated to Noguchi in postwar Japan, visitors will encounter a selection of items from the PEM collection, including Japanese lantern-making tools, a miniature Japanese lantern shop model, a selection of Japanese pottery-making tools and a Japanese earthenware Haniwa figure from the late 5th or 6th century. 

This diverse, interactive presentation will explore works that embrace function to understand Noguchi as a multinational, interdisciplinary artist and designer who shaped a more open, inclusive world.