Carved Relief & Oil Painting - "Merchantman Steamer"

There is no artist by the name of S Noguchi on record but Isamu Noguchi (November 17, 1904 – December 30, 1988) was a Japanese / American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Between 1910 -1922 Isamu spent much time travelling between the US and Japan, probably by steamer, and whilst he attended an American high school he went by the name "Sam Gilmore".

What a great story if this painting was actually painted by an unknown schoolboy calling himself Sam Noguchi, who was on one of his many steamer voyages of that time. He then traded it with a sailor, who then traded it for a kangaroo skin on the Busselton Jetty and then many years later it finally ended up on the walls of our museum!