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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonnéi being prepared by the Isamu Noguchi Foundation.
Isamu Noguchi and Martha Graham were introduced by the artist's sister, who danced with Graham's company. The two artists quickly became friends and in 1935 Graham commissioned Noguchi to design the set for the ballet "Frontier." It was a successful collaboration in the artists' minds, although the dance received a poor review, and the set was criticized for being too conceptual. Noguchi employed two white ropes to evoke the limitless space and lines of the American horizon and the trains that traversed the country.
In 1944, Graham again commissioned Noguchi to design a set for "Herodiade," a dance inspired by the poem by Mallarmé. "Herodiade" is considered to be one of the most elusive ballets by Graham, although she herself is said to have thought it to be too revealing. The dance involved two dancers, Graham and another woman. Graham asked Noguchi to create a set around the concept of the bleached bones of a woman --a skeleton of the physical and emotional sense. Noguchi created an environment that consisted of four elements: a wood wall painted black and three wood sculptures painted white. The wall represented a mirror or reflecting space and the sculptures the bones; the pieces have also been interpreted as furniture from a woman's dressing room. The dance is a meditation on the womens' past and future, on love and death.
Noguchi's wood sculptures for "Herodiade" (currently in the collection of the J.M. Kaplan Fund) are related to his works in marble from this period which established him as a pre-eminent modern sculptor when they were shown at the Egan Gallery in 1948. Noguchi's strongest works attempt to give physical form to what are essentially abstract human emotions.
The present work, Mirror (Torso), is the only work from the "Herodiade" set to be cast in bronze, although the original intent was to cast all of the sculptures. Noguchi and Graham agreed to cast the work prior to his death, and the edition was carried out by the Foundation posthumously. Noguchi often cast earlier works in bronze years after they were originally conceived in marble, including important pieces such as Remembrance and Avatar. The dark color, reflective surface and manifest weight of the bronze generates a completely different feeling from the original marble, or in this case wood, sculptures. Less whimsical, subtle or fragile, Noguchi's transformation of these forms into bronze lends them an ageless and heroic quality. By casting the woman's bare skeleton in bronze, Noguchi transforms the piece, adding a monumentality and strength to the work that didn't exist in the original.
Isamu Noguchi and Martha Graham were introduced by the artist's sister, who danced with Graham's company. The two artists quickly became friends and in 1935 Graham commissioned Noguchi to design the set for the ballet "Frontier." It was a successful collaboration in the artists' minds, although the dance received a poor review, and the set was criticized for being too conceptual. Noguchi employed two white ropes to evoke the limitless space and lines of the American horizon and the trains that traversed the country.
In 1944, Graham again commissioned Noguchi to design a set for "Herodiade," a dance inspired by the poem by Mallarmé. "Herodiade" is considered to be one of the most elusive ballets by Graham, although she herself is said to have thought it to be too revealing. The dance involved two dancers, Graham and another woman. Graham asked Noguchi to create a set around the concept of the bleached bones of a woman --a skeleton of the physical and emotional sense. Noguchi created an environment that consisted of four elements: a wood wall painted black and three wood sculptures painted white. The wall represented a mirror or reflecting space and the sculptures the bones; the pieces have also been interpreted as furniture from a woman's dressing room. The dance is a meditation on the womens' past and future, on love and death.
Noguchi's wood sculptures for "Herodiade" (currently in the collection of the J.M. Kaplan Fund) are related to his works in marble from this period which established him as a pre-eminent modern sculptor when they were shown at the Egan Gallery in 1948. Noguchi's strongest works attempt to give physical form to what are essentially abstract human emotions.
The present work, Mirror (Torso), is the only work from the "Herodiade" set to be cast in bronze, although the original intent was to cast all of the sculptures. Noguchi and Graham agreed to cast the work prior to his death, and the edition was carried out by the Foundation posthumously. Noguchi often cast earlier works in bronze years after they were originally conceived in marble, including important pieces such as Remembrance and Avatar. The dark color, reflective surface and manifest weight of the bronze generates a completely different feeling from the original marble, or in this case wood, sculptures. Less whimsical, subtle or fragile, Noguchi's transformation of these forms into bronze lends them an ageless and heroic quality. By casting the woman's bare skeleton in bronze, Noguchi transforms the piece, adding a monumentality and strength to the work that didn't exist in the original.