THE LIFE OF ISAMU NOGUCHI: Journey Without Borders, by Masayo Duus, translated by Peter Duus. Princeton University Press, 2004, 340 pp., 36 half-tone photos, $29.95 (cloth). ISAMU NOGUCHI: Master Sculptor, by Valerie J. Fletcher, with contributions by Dana Miller and Bonnie Rychlak. London: Scala Publishers, 2004, 240 pp., 130 color plates, many b/w photos, $35 (cloth).

This month Japanese postal authorities issued a new stamp that commemorates the sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). He is pictured in front of two of his works: the ringlike sculpture "Sun at Noon" of 1969 and one of the famous 1956 rice-paper lamps that he called "Light Sculptures."

Aside from the pleasing symmetry of coupling one of his most austere works with one of his most popular, the stamp would, I think, have given Noguchi a deeper satisfaction in that it signalizes Japan's acceptance of the sculptor as a Japanese.

This is something that never sufficiently occurred during Noguchi's lifetime. Born of a Japanese father and an American mother, born illegitimately at that, he constantly felt himself to be an outsider.