When the names Isamu Noguchi and Hasegawa Saburo are mentioned together, the former is likely received with knowing nods by those familiar with mid-twentieth-century art; the latter, less so. Noguchi's art and design work, known for combining traditional Japanese aesthetics with Western modernist principles, has remained relevant in the half century since the two artists met and collaborated, while Hasegawa's art and ideas have been largely forgotten. Addressing this imbalance was one of the goals of the exhibition Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan, the catalogue for which is the subject of this review along with The Saburo Hasegawa Reader (hereafter the Reader), published by the exhibition organizers in both print and digital formats.
The body of the catalogue features seven essays on Hasegawa and Noguchi, their brief period of personal and artistic interaction in the early 1950s, and their ongoing relationship beyond this...
