Produced in the early 1960s, a period that established Isamu Noguchi’s growing allegiance to stone as a primary sculptural medium, Untitled (Face) (c.1960–61) elegantly abstracts human features through abbreviated impressions, carved directly into the surface of the granite. First rehearsed on a plaster maquette, Untitled (Face) celebrates an extreme economy of form, with small, hollowed areas in the place of eyes and ears, and a bisecting linear indentation suggestive of a mouth, carved on both sides. Blending the abstract with the representational, engaging traditional sculptural approaches in dialogue with modern impulses, Untitled (Face) synthesises the diverse transnational influences that shaped Noguchi’s artistic practice. Expressing the hybrid modalities of Noguchi’s distinctive visual language, Untitled (Face) stands as a refined example of his explorations in stone.

Noguchi was introduced to the vast creative possibilities of stone in 1927, while working as a studio assistant in Paris for the Romanian sculptor, Constantin Brâncuși. During this period, Noguchi became acquainted with Brâncuși’s artisanal processing of stone and his belief that ‘matter must continue its natural life when modified by the hand of the sculptor’, adopting a similar approach to natural materials. With its primal articulation of the human visage and solid cuboid form, Untitled (Face) evokes parallels with Brâncuși’s The Kiss, one of the modernist master’s most famous and reprised sculptural motifs, of which he made numerous iterations.

Residing in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Kiss (1916) is a pioneering work in which Brâncuși achieved a harmony between form and material, retaining the integrity of the limestone block while allowing its surface to enhance the rendering of figurative attributes such as the softly rippling hair. Noguchi’s Untitled (Face) abstracts this physiognomy even further, fostering a delicate interplay of light and shadow across the granite surface through the use of varied sculpting techniques, underscoring the intrinsic qualities of his material. Brâncuși's innovative distillation of representational form had a lasting impact on Noguchi, however, it was his novel regard for the materiality of stone that proved foundational to the development of Noguchi’s practice. Reflecting on his experience in Brâncuși's studio, Noguchi stated: ‘I realised I had to forget absolutely everything I’d learned before – everything. I had to begin all over again.’

Noguchi’s appreciation for the natural qualities of stone deepened as his career progressed, enriched by his increasingly frequent visits to Japan from 1950 onwards. He was especially inspired by Japanese gardens and their use of unworked stones to achieve balance and harmony. On a travel fellowship granted by the Bollingen Foundation in 1949, Noguchi journeyed through Europe and Asia, cultivating a visual language that became increasingly expressive of a transnational, contemporary world. Inspired by the sacred sites he encountered – from the ancient standing stones in Carnac, France, to the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia and the carved megaliths in Bali, Sumatra and Java – Untitled (Face) draws upon a diverse array of visual culture. Noguchi came to view stone as the ideal substance through which to convey the merging of the archaic and the modern, favouring it for its ‘ubiquitous presence in nature and in the built human environment he observed in different cultures’, as noted by Matthew Kirsch, Curator and Director of Research at The Noguchi Museum.

Noguchi soon began producing works in the spirit of these spaces, exemplified by his UNESCO Garden project in Paris (1956–58). Between 1960 and 1961, while working on Untitled (Face), Noguchi spent time in Japan searching for stones to feature in several major public commissions inspired by Japanese gardens. These commissions included sculptures for First National City Bank Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas (1960–61) and sunken gardens for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University (1960–64) and Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza in New York (1960–64) – the latter of which Noguchi referred to as ‘My Ryōan-ji’, after the temple and gardens in Kyoto. Created within this context, Untitled (Face) foregrounds the centrality and significance of stone in Noguchi’s sculptural practice. As a prototype for Noguchi’s mature philosophy and aesthetic, Untitled (Face) prefigures the widely celebrated, monumental stone sculptures that the artist went on to produce during the latter part of his career, in the 1970s and 1980s.