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Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A
Akari 4A

Akari 4A

Designed c. 1952
The Akari 4A is among the first Akari light sculptures designed by Isamu Noguchi. It features mulberry bark washi paper, with tight, evenly-spaced bamboo ribbing, and wooden collars (wa). Its distinct form resembles a truncated, inverted cone, with its curve leading to a flared ridge. The top of its three-legged metal frame is accented with wrapped bamboo.
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From the Archives
In 1952, Noguchi continued working on the Akari light sculpture series he had begun a year earlier in Gifu. He created around eighteen models—some with screenprinted designs, like the 4—and exhibited them at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura.1,2 A promotional sheet from the period shows most of the new Akari and, helpfully, assembly instructions.3

The 4A appears again at the Chuo Koron Gallery exhibition of 1954,4–6 with a new variation of pattern: long linear forms are replaced by shorter, wider dashes.

For an essay later that year, in Craft Horizons,7,8 the 4A looms large adjacent to one of Noguchi’s first publicized words about Akari: “I hope I convey something which may be of value to others concerned with bringing alive, for ourselves and our times, the countless nuances of life from other times and places which otherwise are likely to pass away everywhere under the impact of our Western ‘progress.’”

For a more lighthearted photo feature in the April 1955 edition of Interiors Magazine,9 a collage of the assembled and disassembled 4A was printed, showing early examples of its metal components and flat packaging. “All sizes and shapes are possible with Noguchi’s Akari solution,” reads the caption, “so simple that you feel silly not to have thought of it yourself.”
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, September 23–October 19, 1952. Photo: Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 05504. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 1
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, September 23–October 19, 1952. Photo: Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 05501. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 2
Akari Lamps by Isamu Noguchi promotional sheet, c. 1952. The Noguchi Museum Archives, LBD_50S_025_005. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 3
Isamu Noguchi photographing “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 03607. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 4
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 07136. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 5
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 07129. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 6
Isamu Noguchi, “Japanese Akari Lamps,” Craft Horizons, October 1954, 17–18. The Noguchi Museum Archives, BM_JOU_0578_1954. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 7
Isamu Noguchi, “Japanese Akari Lamps,” Craft Horizons, October 1954, 17–18. The Noguchi Museum Archives, BM_JOU_0578_1954. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 8
“Noguchi’s Akari: The Simplest of Solutions for Lighting,” Interiors, April 1955, 120. The Noguchi Museum Archives, BM_JOU_1000_1955. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 9
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.”

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