Isamu Noguchi was born in 1904. His father a Japanese poet and his mother, an American writer, met when his mother helped his father with his English. Soon after he was born, Noguchi moved to Japan with his mother to live with his father; however, at age 13 Noguchi’s father married a Japanese woman, which led to Noguchi distancing himself from his father. Similarly in the book, “A Tale for the Time Being”, the main character moved back to Japan due to her father being laid off from work. In the early life of Noguchi, he was criticized for being talentless by Rushmore sculptor, which led him to take a different course; however, after his mother’s encouragement to pursue art, he left his pre-med courses and joined Leonard da Vinci School to study sculpting. At early in his life, Noguchi was using his mother last name (Gilmour), but after he left Columbia in pursuit of his dream, he changed his last name to that of his father (Noguchi). Living in Japan influenced a lot of Noguchi’s artwork. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Noguchi furthered his political actions by forming Nisei Writings and Artists Mobilization for Democracy in 1942, which was a group dedicated to raising awareness of the patriotism of …show more content…
During the war, he was also placed in an Internment camp in Arizona, which he asked for. But he only stayed there for brief seven months. After returning from the internment camp, he dedicated most of his artwork to public works. Even though he was not required to be housed in the internment camp he volunteered to be placed in one due to his heritage. When Noguchi was in internment camp, he collected driftwood, which he later made it into sculptures. Most of his sculptures related to traditional Japanese culture and American modernism, which were often fused with political