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Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA
Akari 6A IROHA

Akari 6A IROHA

Designed c. 1954
The Akari 6A IROHA is among the first Akari light sculptures designed by Isamu Noguchi. It features screenprinted mulberry bark washi paper with tight, evenly-spaced bamboo ribbing, wooden collars (wa), and a cylindrical form. On its surface is a version of the Iroha, a pangram poem with Buddhist origins, written in hiragana. The top of its three-legged metal frame is accented with wrapped bamboo.
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6A IROHA
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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 6—and exhibited them at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura.1 An early catalogue (c. 1952) notes that the four models numbered 6–9 have “interchangeable shades...with or without colored designs.”2

Summarizing reception to the show, Hugo Munsterberg wrote in 1953’s College Art Journal, “Critics differed widely as regards the success of these sculptures, but all of them were unanimous in hailing his lamps, which combine modern design with the traditional Japanese lanterns, as eminently successful.”

The 6 appears again at the Chuo Koron Gallery exhibition of 1954,3,4 screenprinted with a hiragana version of the Iroha, a pangram (a text that uses every letter of an alphabet) Buddhist poem which explores themes of nature, ephemerality, and spiritual resilience.

Also in 1954, artist and writer Saburo Hasegawa, a friend of Noguchi’s since 1950 (and the subject of Changing and Unchanging Things, at the Noguchi Museum in 2019), created a work centered on the same poem, entitled I-Ro-Ha (The Japanese Syllabary).5 Like the 6A IROHA’s print, the lithograph features the poem’s characters, except under layers of mottled red and black ink. A cultural guide and tutor of Japanese Buddhism for Noguchi, Hasegawa is most likely due the credit for introducing the poem and its meaning to him.

The poem, as written in Hasegawa’s work, and translated for the exhibition, reads:

Colors are fragrant, but they
Will eventually scatter
Who in our world
Is unchanging?
The deep mountains of Karma–
We cross them today
And we shall not have superficial dreams
Nor be deluded.
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, September 23–October 19, 1952. Photo: Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 05503. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 1
Akari Lamps by Isamu Noguchi promotional sheet, c. 1952. The Noguchi Museum Archives, LBD_50S_025_005. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 2
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 05510. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 3
Installation view, “Isamu Noguchi Exhibition,” Chuo Koron Gallery, Tokyo, August 2–7, 1954. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 07137. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 4
Saburo Hasegawa, ‘I-Ro-Ha (The Japanese Syllabary),’ 1954. Lithograph. Tia and Mark Watts Collection
Fig. 5
Saburo Hasegawa (far left), Isamu Noguchi, and Yoshiko (Shirley) Yamaguchi in Kyoto. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 09763.1. ©INFGM / ARS
Fig. 6
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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