Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Noguchi’s first retrospective in the United States was in 1968, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Noguchi received the Edward MacDowell Medal for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to the Arts in 1982, the Kyoto Prize in Arts in 1986, the National Medal of Arts in 1987, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government in 1988. He died in New York City in 1988.