Work (Mask) by Isamu Noguchi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2023

Title: Work (Mask)

Artist: Isamu Noguchi 野口勇 (American, Los Angeles, California 1904–1988 New York)

Period: Shōwa period (1926–89)

Date: 1952

Culture: Japan, Imbe

Medium: Unglazed Bizen stoneware

Dimensions: H. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm): W. 9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm); D. 2 3/8 in. (6 cm)

Classification: Ceramics

Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2021

Accession Number: 2021.401

In 1952, Noguchi was given access to Kitaōji Rosanjin’s kilns in Kamakura to experiment with ceramics and also visited Inbe, an area famous for Bizen ware, to study wood-firing methods. While working in the studio of Kaneshige Tōyō, the first Living National Treasure of Bizen ceramics, he created a plaster mold of an abstract “mask.” Most likely a self-portrait, Work (Mask) depicts a figure with a concentrated expression clenching a cigarette stub in its teeth. Constantin Brancusi’s sculptures provided Noguchi with a modernist context, but he found inspiration in Kofun-period Haniwa figures, ancient funerary objects that were hand-built and unglazed. His 1952 solo exhibition in Kamakura of groundbreaking ceramic sculptures had a powerful impact on progressive younger potters, such as the Sōdeisha members.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/853819