Born as Isamu Noguchi in Los Angeles (1904-1988), son of a Japanese father and an American mother, he combined the best of both cultures in his works. As a youth in Japan he had an apprenticeship with a traditional Japanese carpenter that enabled him to create his famous table for the home of A. Conger Goodyear, President of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He said “any material born into space is sculpture” and he combined materials of different kinds to create true works of art.