Skip to main content
0
0
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A
Akari 1A

Akari 1A

Designed c. 1952–54
One of Isamu Noguchi's first designs for Akari light sculptures, the Akari 1A is evocatively referenced as "beehive lamp form" in its copyright registration. It features mulberry bark washi paper and tight, evenly-spaced bamboo ribbing, with a rounded form reminiscent of both traditional Gifu chochin pendant lanterns and other works by Noguchi.
$195
$175.50 Members
Members save 10%. Join today
Select a model:
1A
17
10
1AD
17
10
1AS
17
10
1AG
17
10
1AR
17
10
1AV
17
10
1AT
17
10
1AY
17
10
IN STOCK. Ships in 1-2 weeks.
Enter your email to be notified when this product is available
Close
As Seen In
Design by Studio Ilse
Design by Studio AHEAD. Photo: Ekaterina Izmestieva
From the Archives
The Akari 1A is an evolution of the 1, among the first Akari designed by Isamu Noguchi, which was shown at an early landmark exhibition for the series, at the Kamakura Museum of Art in 1952.1 The 1, unlike the Akari 1A, included wa, wood collars at the top and bottom edges of the shade, a trait shared with all Akari from that year and many traditional Japanese lanterns.2 In 1954, writing from Japan to his accountant, Noguchi was focused on “the bugs being ironed out” of Akari, which he had developed “to a point where one design at least should be available for mass production very cheap—besides its being beautiful.” In the letter, he coined the model “No. 1.a.”

Expanding how society experienced and what it defined as sculpture was fundamental to Noguchi, be it through an abstract stonework, a publicly accessible playground, or a relatively affordable “new way of total lighting.” “I believe in the possibilities of art designed for multiple production (not reproduction). Art is art whatever it is called,” he wrote for Shapes of Light, his Akari exhibition at Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in 1968. “I like the fact that anybody can get them without spending too much money,” he said a decade later to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, before conceding, “Well, they’re sort of expensive now, but they’re still cheaper than what you would otherwise get.”

His design for the revised 1A, besides eliminating the wa, also rounds out the silhouette of the shade, which had transitioned from a rounded top to an open cylinder, into a more balanced, almost pyramidal shape, its bottom edge gently curving inward.3 It calls to mind similar forms across Noguchi’s body of work, sectioned in the small, practical Measured Time (1933),4 and rotated in the monumental Energy Void (1972–73).5

Noguchi created multiple screenprinted variations of the 1A. More than any other Akari, it was a kind of canvas for the artist for experimenting with pattern and color. These included the rounded lines of the 1AD, alternating stripes of the 1AS, and enigmatic sun and bowtie of the 1AG (and 1AB, 1AR, 1AT, 1AV, and 1AY). A number of these were exhibited in 1954 at the Chuo Koron Gallery in Tokyo. A prolific photographer, Noguchi shot the installation himself, which featured designs from the first three years of the Akari series.6,7

By 1955, the Akari 1A was sold in the United States at Bonniers, marketed as “Akari jr.,” and priced at $4.95.8 “Lights should be as movable as butterflies,” Noguchi said of the lamp in an interview for the New York Times in 1955. “They should have an accidental, nature quality lacking from fixed, willful mechanical electricity.” 9

Noguchi continued exhibiting variations of the 1A throughout his career, including the 1AG at Space of Akari & Stone in 1985,10,11 and at Isamu Noguchi: What is Sculpture? for the American Pavilion at the 1986 Venice Biennale.12 The model also was chosen to be his bedside table lamp at his shoji-screened 10th Street studio loft in Long Island City in 1964.13
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, September 23–October 19, 1952. Photo: Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 09227.1. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 1
Akari pictured in exhibition catalogue “Noguchi: 1931/50/51/52/Japan” (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha, 1953). ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 2
Isamu Noguchi, Akari 1A. Photo: Michio Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 03422. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 3
Isamu Noguchi, ‘Measured Time,’ 1933. Photo: Kevin Noble. The Isamu Noguchi Catalogue Raisonné, 801. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 4
Isamu Noguchi standing with ‘Energy Void,’ c. 1971. Photo: Michio Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 04072. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 5
Isamu Noguchi photographing “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 03607. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 6
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 07141. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 7
Bonniers advertisement for Akari jr., c. 1956. The Noguchi Museum Archives, B_AD_2000_1956. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 8
“Lantern Lamps: A Light Year Ahead in Design,” The New York Times, April 18, 1955, 26.
Fig. 9
Installation view, “Space of Akari & Stone,” Yurakucho Art Forum (Seibu Museum of Art), February 9–20, 1985. Photo: Shigeo Anzai. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 144339. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 10
Installation view, ‘Space of Akari & Stone,’ Yurakucho Art Forum (Seibu Museum of Art), February 9–20, 1985. Photo: Y. Takase. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 154199. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 11
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi: What Is Sculpture?,” 1986 Venice Biennale, June 29–September 28, 1986. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 144382. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 12
Isamu Noguchi’s 10th Street studio, Long Island City, Queens, New York, 1964. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 07294. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 13
About Akari Light Sculptures

Learn more about the history of Akari, one of Isamu Noguchi’s most successful efforts “to bring sculpture into a more direct involvement with the common experience of living.”

Explore the History

Related Works

FAQs

View All