This Isamu Noguchi rudder coffee table is not included in the catalogue of Noguchi's works prepared by Nancy Grove and Diane Botnick (the Sculpture of Isamu Noguchi: A Catalogue, Garland Publishing Company, New York, 1980). However, an almost identical dining-height table is catalogued as item 804 and dated 1944. In all probability this coffee table was designed at the same time or slightly afterwards. It was put into production by Herman Miller Inc. in 1948 as the IN-52 and remained in production for only a brief time. Very few examples of the original production have survived, and consequently have fetched top dollar at recent modernist auctions. 

Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles, the son of Leonie Gilmour, an American writer of Irish origin and Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi, a Japanese poet. Of his work, he said: "Everything is sculpture. Every material, and each idea that is freely born in space, I consider to be sculpture. The boundary being in a certain way, perceived as the starting point embodying all the elements of space perception, and volume: a perception of volume that is not only bi-dimensional, but a three-dimensional. This is the manner in which I have carried out all my work."

Dimensions: H 16 1/4"; D 36 1/4"; W 51 1/4"

Materials: Coffee table in cherrywood with one leg in wood, two legs in chrome-plated steel.