Isamu Noguchi Sculpture

Isamu Noguchi sculpture 'Strange Bird' arrives at Speed Art Museum

"Strange Bird," a celebrated sculpture by Isamu Noguchi that was recently acquired by the Speed Art Museum, was unveiled Oct. 8 before a crowd of 300.

Noguchi, a leading 20th-century sculptor, originally created the work in a model of soft, green stone in 1945 because of limited finances. The 55-inch sculpture was cast in metal in 1972 in a series of eight pieces. The Speed's acquisition is one of three cast in aluminum. The other five are in bronze.

The sculpture was acquired from the Mary F. Myers estate in Akron, Ohio, museum director Charles Venable said in a statement. He declined to say how much it cost, citing museum policy.

Venable said, "A work like 'Strange Bird' greatly enhances the museum's ability to show the development and impact of abstract impressionist art during the key decades of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s."

He said the sculpture would be displayed later this year in galleries devoted to early 20th-century art.

Noguchi was born in Los Angeles of Japanese heritage at the dawn of the 20th century. By the 1920s, he was considered one of America's most gifted artists. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927 and studied in Paris with renowned Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who greatly influenced Noguchi.

Noguchi established a studio in the 1930s, earned money designing stage sets for dancer Martha Graham, helped Japanese-American citizens interned during World War II and, by the mid-1940s, began creating abstract sculptures of interconnected elements with smooth surfaces.

Noguchi would draw the interlocking components on drafting paper, transfer those drawings to sculpting materials and cut them out separately for reassembly piece by piece, so the finished work challenges viewers to determine how the overall composition fits together.

Using this technique, he created the bronze "Mirror" in 1944 as an abstract clothes rack for a Graham production, and "Avatar," the marble incarnation of a deity, in 1947; but "Strange Bird" is considered the most acclaimed of these works.