Art: Sense and Subtlety in Stone

At 75, Isamu Noguchi remains the top U.S. sculptor

Isamu Noguchi is the pre-eminent American sculptor. This fine-boned and unaged man, with a grip as tough as an old Maine lobster's, has expanded his work over an extraordinary range of images, media and purposes in the course of a 50-year career. Whether he is engaged with ballet and theater sets or monumental fountains, pieces for giant plazas or intimate playgrounds, huge sun discs fabricated from carved stone or diminutive wood sculptures and paper lamps, Noguchi's touch has never ceased to be subtle, precise and informed. He is entitled to be seen, in...