Isamu Noguchi was one of the most successful and influential artists of the 20th century. He was born in 1904; his mother was an American editor, his father a Japanese poet. He grew up in Japan and Indiana as a beauty-loving, adventurous, but alienated boy with precocious skills in gardening and wood carving. His talents attracted teachers and mentors, and at age 23 he wrote: "Give me but uninterupted [sic] time and I will rival the immortals." In New York, he established himself by sculpting busts of celebrities, but soon moved toward abstract art that explored curving forms and spaces found in nature, using traditional techniques in wood, metal, paper and especially stone. Noguchi was deeply restless, exploring different media and traveling the world. An attractive man with an aura of loneliness, he had many lovers and many gifted friends. He enjoyed lifelong friendships and collaborations with Buckminster Fuller and Martha Graham, and created gardens, public art, furniture and delicate paper lamps: "...he said that he wanted his art to 'participate in society.' ...he aimed for meaning that went beyond his own emotions."
Hayden Herrera (Arshile Gorky) is an art historian and biographer. In Listening to Stone, she displays her expert understanding of Noguchi's work, and a gift for understated and sometimes dryly humorous description. She rarely indulges in speculation. Noguchi had a complex personality, a rich life and a six-decade career, all of which could make for an overwhelming book, but Herrera breaks it up into clean little chapters that encapsulate and encourage reflection on each of Noguchi's projects and life events. This is likely to be a definitive biography. --Sara Catterall