Customer Reviews

Crossroads of American Sculpture: David Smith, George Rickey, John Chamberlain, Robert Indiana, William T. Wiley, Bruce Nauman

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This "Crossroads" is a landmark publication; ...outstanding critiques, but deeply flawed in scope ... This is just another sad reminder to me that America's world-famed sculptor Isamu Noguchi--who grew up for four years in a local family as a typical Hoosier teenager in LaPorte, Indiana and going to its public High School, graduated there in 1922. These little known years, of "Sam Gilmour" the child becoming Isamu Noguchi a young man, shaped the spirit and the genius of this future world-famed artist. Academics, Scholars and Curators, and 4th-grade teachers of History everywhere will be intriqued. We can only hope now that one of our Universities or Museums somewhere will correct this oversight with one of the new digital iPhone/iPod apps on this forgotten heritage.

Through no fault of its own, the Indianapolis Museum of Art's neglect to include Noguchi in this landmark publication simply mirrored the misdirection by this historic Category Error of the Art World at large. Previous misinformation dominated our perception of Noguchi's education as though a foreign child was sent to America from Japan by his mother to the progressive, private Interlaken Boarding School in Rolling Prairie, Indiana. This had been true, but that School was suddenly closed (in a rush by the US Army with the unrealized intent to be converted into a WW I training facility; but the War ended before it could be established) at just about the time of his lonely transcontinental arrival. Befriended then by its progressive educator and former owner, Dr. Rumely, the 13 year-old boy was placed with the local Dr. Mack family in nearby LaPorte. The rest is history, but not fully told. "Mark Twain" where are you when we need telling such an improbable tale?

Noguchi's formidable Indiana experiences as a typical teenager in the typical small, Midwestern town becomes an explosive note in American Arts history. "I am a Hoosier too" Noguchi said. --Glenn Ralston