From Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America

From Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America is an exhibition at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia about six artists and designers who shaped the look of America after the Second World War. Among them are Isamu Noguchi, George Nakashima and Ruth Asawa. Curated by Barnes staff, the exhibition runs in the Roberts Gallery from 20 September 2026 to 10 January 2027.

For product designers, furniture makers and sculptors, it is a concentrated look at a generation that blurred the line between art and design.

About the Designers

Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was a sculptor and designer whose work ranged from monumental stone sculpture to gardens, stage sets, furniture and the Akari paper lamps that are still in production today.

George Nakashima (1905–1990) was a woodworker and architect whose furniture, made from slabs of wood with their natural edges, became a landmark of American craft.

Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) is celebrated for her hanging sculptures of looped wire, which seem to float and cast intricate shadows, and for her lifelong work in arts education in San Francisco.

All three had Japanese heritage, and all three were affected by the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, an experience that marks the history of postwar American design.

About the Exhibition

The exhibition presents six artists, showing how they combined modernist forms with craft traditions and natural materials, creating objects for homes and public spaces that still feel contemporary.

Exhibition Dates

20 September 2026 — Exhibition opened 10 January 2027 — Exhibition closes

Why Visit Noguchi to Asawa?

The postwar period was a golden age of American design, and these artists show its most poetic side: wood, wire, paper and stone handled with sensitivity and restraint. Designers will find ideas about materials, light and form; sculptors will see how craft can become art.

Who Should Visit?

• Product and furniture designers
• Woodworkers, ceramicists and makers
• Sculptors and installation artists
• Design history students

Tickets

• Adults: $30
• Seniors: $28
• Students: $5
• Members: free

Planning Your Visit

The Barnes Foundation is on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum. Leave time for the Barnes's famous permanent collection of Impressionist and modern art, hung in Albert Barnes's distinctive arrangements.

Materials and Making

Each artist in the exhibition is closely linked to particular materials. Noguchi worked with stone, metal, wood and paper, moving between sculpture and everyday objects such as tables and lamps. Nakashima chose individual slabs of wood and let their grain, knots and edges guide the design. Asawa wove wire by hand into continuous forms, a technique she developed after seeing basket-making in Mexico. For designers today, their work shows how deep knowledge of a material can lead to timeless forms.

Design and Postwar America

After 1945, American homes, offices and public spaces were rebuilt and reimagined, and designers created furniture and objects for a new modern way of life. These artists brought a quieter, more handmade sensibility to that movement, influenced by Japanese craft traditions as well as modernism. Their work remains in production and in demand today.

Tips for Visiting

Allow time to walk around the sculptures and see how light passes through the lamps and wire forms. Look at joints and details on the furniture: they reveal how each piece was made.

Things to Know

• Dates: until 10 January 2027.
• Six artists, including Noguchi, Nakashima and Asawa.
• Students: $5 tickets.

Visit the Exhibition

Planning a visit?

Visit the Barnes Foundation

Tickets and opening hours are on the official Barnes Foundation website.

Looking for more to see? Browse all events, festivals and exhibitions on Good Stuff Weekly.

Last verified: October 29, 2026