Born in Los Angeles to the poet Yonejiro Noguchi and the American writer Léonie Gilmour; his Japanese name was Isamu Noguchi. After a boyhood in Japan he returned to the United States to study sculpture. In 1927 he went to Paris and worked as an assistant to Brâncuși, and from 1932 he set up a studio in New York and began to work. Returning to Japan in 1950 he came to know Kenzo Tange, Yoshiro Taniguchi and Antonin Raymond, and learned ceramics from Rosanjin Kitaoji in Kamakura, making unglazed works. Thereafter he worked between Japan and New York. Seeking a firm and graceful form through organic shapes, he was active beyond sculpture in furniture, lamps, garden design and stage sets.