Catalogue 40A, Japan and East Asia, now online

Announcing our newest Japan and East Asia Catalogue, no. 40A:

Here is a diverse collection of recently acquired material, running the gamut from useful 20th century reference works on the arts and languages of east Asia to woodblock-illustrated Japanese ehon and design books, prewar avant-garde and modernist fine art, posters and advertising art. From botanicals and birds to social satire and illustrated poetry with a bit of photography included, the visual feast goes on. Click here for the catalogue. Enjoy!

New East Asian Art Reference list online

We've been mining our shelves, organizing our backlist by subject area. This group of titles, mostly references to the art world of East Asia, includes books long out-of-print and sought-for. Take a look, please, and let us know if there is anything here that pleases you and if there are other works you are seeking in the field. Click here for the list.

20th Century East Asian Books

click here for catalogue

The creation of useful organizing elements in the field of Japanese illustration is often quite arbitrary. May we plead guilty to that fault in creating this list of Japanese illustrated books of the 20th century. Lumping together books created in various media, books deriving from sources as disparate as Ukiyo-e and the European avant-garde and many schools and traditions in between may confuse as much as it orders, but there it is - the 20th was a messy century. What unites the books is their essential Japanese aesthetic. They play well together, at least as we see them.

Charles Vilnis

New East Asian Design list online

We are pleased to announce our new online list of East Asian Design books.

A message from Charles Vilnis:

Hello,

Besides my interest in classic ehon picture books and Japanese botanicals, I have been pursuing Japanese design books of the 20th century for many years now, focusing on a few main areas.

There are the kimono-oriented hinagata-bon, largely done in Kyoto from 1890-1935, printed in color and published by Unkindô, Unsôdô, Happôdô, and a few other high-quality printing houses. They restored the heritage of hinagata-bon kimono design works from the 17th and 18th century, which had been created then by such important Kansai ukiyo-e artists as Moronobu and Sukenobu.

In the 20th century, Kamisaka Sekka, Furuya Kôrin, Kaigai Tennen, Tsuda Seifû, Nishida Ungai and many others, besides contributing to the kimono design works, also produced "pure design" albums [zuancho] with collections of wonderfully creative designs for design's sake, largely printed in color woodblock by Unkindô, Unsôdô, etc..

Finally, there are the design books which stray from the dominant medium of color woodblock to employ lithography, stencil, silkscreen, linoleum printing and every imaginable hybrid technique possible, printed largely in Tokyo on every conceivable paper surface, from washi handmade paper to newsprint. I have found wonderful treasures of design, albums by Sugiura Hisui, Yamana Ayao, Fujii Tatsukichi and many others, as well as guides to industrial design and advertising art from the Taisho and early Showa periods of the 'teens, 20's and 30's. All in all, the works present a wonderful vade mecum to a world that is only now being recollected some 65 years after its utter destruction.

We have put together a list of items in stock that you might like from those three areas. Enjoy.

Korin Moyo

We are pleased to offer:

[DESIGN BOOK] FURUYA Korin, artist. KORIN MOYO. No colophon: [Kyoto: Yamada Unsodo, c. 1907] 25 x 35.5 cm, oblong folding album printed in color woodcut, in cloth over board covers with paper label. Covers titled in the usual hentai-gana. Preface by Furuya. The album consists of 21 oblong spreads lavishly printed in colors and metallic inks. This would seem to be a variant issue of the 2 volume KORIN MOYO, published by Unsodo in 1907, where the 25 double page spreads in 2 volumes were folded in half and issued as small orihon albums. Fairly well printed and overprinted in metallic inks and bold colors. A good example of the Neo-Rimpa style, here available in a full page, unfolded version. A very unusual format for this important work. [Ryerson p.363] $1,400.00 #85065 Contact us to order or enquire.

Catalogue 39A Japan and Asia now online

We are pleased to announce our new Catalogue 39A Japan and Asia, featuring 104 items. Please feel free to visit and enquire. Additional images are available upon request.

Catalogue 38A Japan and Asia online

Friends,

We are pleased to announce our new catalogue 38A, Japan and Asia, featuring 147 items. The catalogue is now online and can be viewed at http://www.rarebook.com/cat38/cat38ad.html. We look forward to any questions or comments. Contact us directly to order or inquire.

Japanese Commercial Art: 24 volumes

We have just been cataloging our new acquisitions from Japan. This will be of special interest to those who appreciate Japanese commercial design:

[COMMERCIAL ART] GENDAI SHÔGYÔ BIJUTSU ZENSHÛ THE COMPLETE COMMERCIAL ARTIST 24 volumes. Tokyo, ARS, Shôwa 3 [1928] 24 large slender 8vo. vols., this edition bound in red cloth, gilt, with bi-lingual titling. A remarkable compendium, heavily illustrated in color and b+w, exploring the whole world of commercial art, in Japan and abroad, for the professional. With remarkable articles by the leading proponents of Japanese advertising and commercial art of the day. One occasionally finds odd volumes of this thematically organized work, but it is very unusual thus, complete. Essential reference to late Taishô, early Shôwa culture. Complete, very good. SOLD.



We will be issuing an new Japanese and East Asian catalogue near the end of the year. To receive notification of the publication of the electronic version, please contact us at eacatalogue@rarebook.com with your email address.