Noguchi Museum
9-01 33rd Road | also 32-61 Vernon Boulevard | Ravenswood | built 1983
Open on the map6 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1974
Sculptor Isamu Noguchi buys a photogravure plant across from his studio to house a museum
Isamu Noguchi had lived and worked in a Long Island City studio since 1961. In 1974 he bought the photogravure plant and gas station across the street to hold a museum of his sculptures, architectural models, stage sets, drawings and furniture. Cleaning up the back lot, he spared a Tree of Heaven, and a former aide later said the sculpture garden was in a sense designed around it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1985
The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum opens, founded by the artist during his own lifetime
Noguchi's museum opened to visitors in 1985, at first only seasonally. It was then the first museum in America set up by a living artist. The two-story building and sculpture garden, covering 24,000 square feet one block from Socrates Sculpture Park, held his own work; he died in 1988, and Shoji Sadao became director the next year.
“At the time, it was the first such museum to be established by a living artist in America.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
The Noguchi Museum reopens year-round after a $13.5 million overhaul
In 1999 the board of the foundation backed a $13.5 million master plan to fix structural problems, meet accessibility and building codes and add an education space. During the work the museum moved to temporary quarters in Sunnyside, Queens. It was formally chartered as a museum in February 2004 and reopened in its renovated building that June, now able to stay open all year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
The garden's 75-year-old Tree of Heaven comes down and is remade into benches
The 60-foot ailanthus that Noguchi had kept as the garden's centerpiece was found to be dying in early 2008 and threatened to fall onto the building just before an $8.2 million renovation. It came down on March 26, 2008, and the museum brought in the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop, a collective of artists, to turn its wood into benches, sculptures and other fixtures.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2010
The museum marks 25 years with a show on Noguchi and his contemporaries
For its 25th anniversary the museum mounted On Becoming an Artist: Isamu Noguchi and His Contemporaries, 1922-1960, on view from November 17, 2010, through April 24, 2011. The museum has also shown the work of artists such as Koho Yamamoto and Toshiko Takaezu.
“The museum celebrated the 25th anniversary of its opening with the exhibition On Becoming an Artist.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2024
The museum fires three attendants over keffiyehs and Jhumpa Lahiri refuses its award
In September 2024 the museum dismissed three gallery attendants for wearing keffiyeh scarves, citing an August 2024 policy barring staff from displaying political messages or symbols. Later that month author Jhumpa Lahiri turned down the museum's annual Isamu Noguchi Award, given since 2014, pointing to the firings as her reason.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Noguchi MuseumWikipedia
Nearby
- Former Barkin, Levin & Company coat factory12-12 33rd Avenue | 4 entries
- Sohmer & Company Piano Factory31-01 Vernon Boulevard | 8 entries
- The Octagon888 Main Street | 12 entries
- Brearley School610 East 83rd Street | 4 entries
- 10 Gracie Square6 entries
- The Chapin School100 East End Avenue | 9 entries