Isamu Noguchi

In 1959 Noguchi began a series of "sun" sculptures, a theme that concerned him until about 1969. He made many studies, in full scale and monumental versions in marble, granite, iron and bronze. Sunstone was one of a number of studies he made to help him explore this circular form in order to settle on a final shape, size and stone for the commission he was offered to build in the Sunken Garden for the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University. Inspired by the geometric, symbolic forms in the Jal Singh's astronomical gardens in India, as geometrical instruments evoking the cosmos, the circular form of Sunstone not only symbolizes our nearest star but also represents pure energy, or matter, the source of light and life.