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.