NEW YORK—Leonard Riggio, the moving force behind the Dia Art Foundation’s Dia: Beacon museum in Upstate New York, is a longtime fan of sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Riggio has amassed a collection of Noguchi works, currently on display at his house on New York’s Long Island, and he is planning to donate nine objects to the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City.

Riggio, chairman of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, pledged his gift in 2001, and had wanted to do it anonymously. But the museum requested that the gift be publicized to inspire others, the New York Times reported.

The works are made of basalt, granite and andesite and were created by Noguchi in Mure-cho, a Japanese village on the island of Shikoku. They were created from 1983 to 1986, late in the career of Noguchi, who died in 1988.