Lot Essay
The theme of Sun, with its inherently powerful connotations, would occupy Isamu Noguchi from about 1959 until 1969, and would lead to the creation of two of his most important and beautiful public sculptures: the version which is part of the ensemble at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University (1960-64) and the monumental granite Black Sun (1969) at the Seattle Art Museum.
The circle of energy is more to Noguchi than merely a pure geometric shape. It is endowed with the mystery and cosmic energy of the life-force itself. Not only does it represent the power of the Sun but, in Zen terms, "the representation of the infinite, the formless state of life and matter which is the basis of all being...Noguchi consciously creates forms that are, in a sense, 'inhabited' and inescapably associative rather than purely abstract and non-referential" (S. Hunter, Isamu Noguchi, New York 1978, p. 153).
Carved in brilliant white marble, the Bunshaft Sun was executed at the time of the collaboration of Noguchi and Gordon Bunshaft on the sculpture garden at the Beinecke Library, which was built by Skidmore Owings and Merrill with Bunshaft as the principal architect and designer. The two friends had collaborated before, on the unrealized sculpture garden for the Plaza at the Lever House on Park Avenue, and on the magnificently realized sculpture garden at the Chase Manhattan Bank Building in the Wall Street financial district of lower Manhattan. With his design of Lever House, Bunshaft had brought the architectural style of the Skidmore firm to international prominence, and established a new standard for office buildings after the war which forever changed the face of cities worldwide.
The circle of energy is more to Noguchi than merely a pure geometric shape. It is endowed with the mystery and cosmic energy of the life-force itself. Not only does it represent the power of the Sun but, in Zen terms, "the representation of the infinite, the formless state of life and matter which is the basis of all being...Noguchi consciously creates forms that are, in a sense, 'inhabited' and inescapably associative rather than purely abstract and non-referential" (S. Hunter, Isamu Noguchi, New York 1978, p. 153).
Carved in brilliant white marble, the Bunshaft Sun was executed at the time of the collaboration of Noguchi and Gordon Bunshaft on the sculpture garden at the Beinecke Library, which was built by Skidmore Owings and Merrill with Bunshaft as the principal architect and designer. The two friends had collaborated before, on the unrealized sculpture garden for the Plaza at the Lever House on Park Avenue, and on the magnificently realized sculpture garden at the Chase Manhattan Bank Building in the Wall Street financial district of lower Manhattan. With his design of Lever House, Bunshaft had brought the architectural style of the Skidmore firm to international prominence, and established a new standard for office buildings after the war which forever changed the face of cities worldwide.