World War II and the Atomic Age

Noguchi was deeply impacted by the events of World War II, a sentiment amplified by his own complex background as the son of a Japanese father and an American mother. In response to the death and destruction of this period, Noguchi began a series of works that reckon with how we remember the past and memorialize loss. These include his ultimately unrealized proposals for the devastated city of Hiroshima: Bell Tower for Hiroshima, a seventy‐foot fragmented structure with dangling bells sourced from around the world, and Memorial to the Dead, Hiroshima, a cenotaph and underground crypt honoring those killed by the atomic bombs. The latter sculpture, as well as a series of slab ceramic works made around the same time, purposefully allude to haniwa, ancient Japanese burial sculptures that had long interested Noguchi, and which he found solace in remaking in the postwar present.