Isamu Noguchi ash and glass ‘Coffee Table’

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a Japanese-American sculptor.
Noguchi studied medicine at Columbia University from 1923 to 1926, and from 1924 he attended evening classes at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. He then started his first studio, acquired a Guggenheim Fellowship and moved to Paris in 1927, where he became an assistant to Constantin Brancusi, whose work he had already become acquainted with in New York. He made his first work ‘Sphere section’ at Brancusi. In 1929 a first exhibition was organized in New York.

From 1930 followed a long period of travel in Asia, India, China and of course Japan, Europe and the United States. After World War II, in which he was also interned by the authorities in Camp Poston in May 1942 and accused of spying for Japan, he opened a new studio in Greenwich Village after his release and return to New York. In the fifties and sixties his star was rising and his international fame ensured that his projects were in high demand.

For the design of the Coffee Table (1944), Isamu Noguchi translated the biomorphic aesthetic of his sculptures into a piece of furniture with characteristic organic shapes. This is probably why Noguchi considered the table his best furniture design. Two wooden leg elements, available in black ash, maple or walnut, are placed at right angles to each other to stably support the heavy, robust glass table top.
The table is still made by Vitra which shows that this design is timeless.