Seventy-Five Years On, Noguchi's Akari Lanterns Outshine Their Copycats

Isamu Noguchi created more than 200 Akari light sculptures in his lifetime, and 75 years after the first designs, his paper lanterns have outlasted a legion of imitators. The Noguchi Museum in New York is now celebrating the milestone with a dedicated exhibition, "No Ordinary Light: Akari at 75," opening 4 November 2026 and running through 5 September 2027.

The story starts in Gifu, Japan, in 1951. Noguchi, the American artist and designer who lived from 1904 to 1988, encountered illuminated paper lanterns called chochin during a visit to the city. The handcrafted lanterns, made of mulberry bark paper, served mostly as decorations or advertisements. Gifu's mayor then asked Noguchi to revive the city's lantern industry, which had been diluted by inferior replicas. Noguchi's swift move: he replaced the customary candle with an incandescent lightbulb.

What is an Akari lantern made of?

The name carries the idea. "Akari" is a Japanese word meaning "light," and it's also associated with weightlessness. Noguchi built his lanterns from high-quality Gifu materials: strips of mulberry bark washi paper structured with bamboo ribbing. The washi's durability and plasticity let Noguchi play with shapes, while the collapsible construction kept the lanterns practical. They flatten, they expand, and they ship easily — a design that toed the line between material and immaterial.

He never stopped refining them. "Noguchi spoke of developing new designs as a way to 'foil [his] many imitators, through innovation, to reach a point where they could no longer follow,'" says Kate Wiener, curator for The Noguchi Museum. But she notes he described something deeper: "[It] became like a cause with me—a new shape, merely, was not enough; it obviously had to be fitted into today's new ways and uses."

Wiener adds that the lanterns "embodied his lifelong vision of a hybrid, accessible form of sculpture that could transcend the boundaries between art and design and become an integral part of everyday experience." That vision, she says, kept him returning to Akari, exploring just how far he could take them.

The earliest versions are a table lamp identified as 9A and a floor lamp labeled 14A, according to Evan Scott, the museum's director of retail and merchandising. Both sit on three-legged metal frames with wooden collars and evenly spaced bamboo ribbing. The range grew to include globe-shaped ceiling lights and column-shaped shades with minimal ribbing, mostly in off-white, though some models carry colorful screen-printed designs.

Why do the originals still win?

Matthew Kirsch, curator and director of research at The Noguchi Museum, points to the material itself. "There is an obvious beauty to the way light suffuses and filters through the mulberry bark paper used for Akari that probably accounts for a good bit of their lasting appeal," he says. "There is a warmth in the way light is transmitted through the paper of an Akari that is missing from its many imitators."

The handmade quality shows in the shades' natural wrinkles. "The method of construction for most models, based on the chochin lantern's spiral bamboo ribbing, is relatively unchanged from how they were made when Noguchi began working with the Ozeki family in Gifu in the 1950s and, obviously, for many decades before that," Kirsch explains.

How do you buy one?

Noguchi called Akari "elegant people's art," and buyers have favorites. "1A and 1N have remained two of the most popular table Akari," Scott says. "The globe and saucer-shaped ceiling Akari, which come in a number of sizes and shapes and bamboo ribbing styles, are also popular."

Authentic pieces sell through The Noguchi Museum, online and at its Queens shop. Ozeki & Co. covers Japan, and Vitra serves Europe and the Middle East, among other regions. Occasional models come through exhibition and design partners listed on the museum's website. Every genuine Akari carries a red sun and moon stamp on the shade, and contemporary models add an "I. Noguchi" signature beside the logo.

With the lanterns glowing across homes, hotels, restaurants and film sets — and now a yearlong museum survey — the copies keep coming, but the originals, it seems, aren't dimming.