p3
Japanese advertising. An album of labels, mostly for silk and or kimono textiles which date from Taisho (1911-25) through to about 1960. n.p. c1910-1960. Embossed and partly tinted album titled 'All Samples 2598'; 25x38cm; with three preliminary colour printed sheets with collages of labels and a printed leaf of text - a metric table - at the end; some 430 labels mounted on 50 leaves. Signs of use and some labels coming adrift but all is bright and vivid. sold
A pretty good collection spanning about half a century, most prewar. Whether or not it is the printer's collection I don't know. There is a rubber stamp inside the front cover but it is not distinct enough for this illiterate to decipher. What is clear is that these are fresh, unused labels. They have not been soaked off packets, wrappers and boxes by some keen amateur. At the beginning are some woodcuts, a few on crepe paper, some with extra embossing. The earlier ones are on heavy paper or something approaching card. There are a handful of fabric labels on one leaf.
Teruha toiletry poster. 白麗水 [Hakuresui or Hakureisui]. A shop poster for Hakuresui toiletry to whiten the skin and remove blemishes. Osaka, Takegaki Shokai c1910. Colour lithograph 53x38cm on quite heavy paper. A couple of tiny edge chips, a near invisible repair to a short tear; a rather good copy. Au$1200
Among the myriad images that use race superiority and fear to sell goods - particularly soaps, toiletries and cosmetics - this is the weirdest and most hypnotic that I've ever seen. The weirdness intensifies if you know that the model is Teruha, maybe Japan's most famous geisha and pin-up girl at the end of the Meiji and through the Taisho period.
Born Tatsuko Takaoka, in this poster she is about 14 and has possibly graduated from her apprentice name, Chiyoha. Sold by her father at 12, her virginity was soon sold to the president of the Osaka stock exchange and by the time she was 14 she had been engaged to one wealthy business man, promised to another and had a secret affair with an actor. The extended left pinkie finger must be a joke about her misguided sacrifice to love which earnt her yet another name: the Nine Fingered Geisha.
Before and after - or with and without - comparisons were nothing new in Japanese advertising. Neither were celebrities: courtesan prints sold patent medicines long before the Americans arrived and Bismarck adorned adverts for a patent syphilis cure that did for medicine what Bismarck did for Germany. Darkie - coon, nigger, whatever you want to call it - advertising images were obviously not unknown but neither can they have been familiar enough to be taken for granted and reproduced to the American and British formula in the way that the jazz age negro became a standard pattern to be played with by artists and designers in Japan as everywhere else. There is more than hint of a jovial tengu, spirit or minor god here, but for that suit.
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Sugoroku. 滑稽海路名所双六 [Kokkei Kairo Meisho Sugoroku]. Osaka Shosen Kabushikigaisha 1911 (Meiji 44). Colour broadside 39x54cm. Used, with some small holes, short tears and splodges. Au$750
A rare game by a fine artist I haven't yet identified, published by the shipping company Osaka Mercantile Company and clearly marked not for sale. It is a comic tour of Japan by two archetypes: tall, thin, neat and modern; short, bald and traditionally scruffy - ie Yaji & Kita from Shank's Mare updated.
The name Okamoto Shozo appears in the colophon but is not, I believe, the artist. This is someone good.
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Kawabata Ryushi 二十四時家庭双六 [Nijuyon Toki Katei]. Tokyo, Fujin Sekai 1912 (Meiji 45). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A little used, a few small holes in folds. Au$400
The new year gift from the magazine Fujin Sekai - Woman's World - charting the day in the busy but calm and most decorative life of the successful woman - wife and mother.
Kawabata's career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.
Ota Saburo. 初夢独判断 [Hatsuyume Doku Handan]. Tokyo, Hakubunkan 1913 (Taisho 2). Colour broadside 54x79cm. Folded as issued; minimal signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$600
This elegant peep into the dreams of a girl or young woman is like few other such prints. Most new year sugoroku - games - laying out the ideal life for girls and women, and there are plenty of them, display conscientious, industrious, gentle, kind, neat, cultured, respectful, and obedient girls who will be rewarded with a good husband and luxurious shopping. Here suitors barely make it into two scenes.
Here is a woman who will run and dance barefoot, drink wine (if not absinthe) on her own in a cafe and wrestle eels with gusto.
This was the New Years gift from the women's magazine Sukuju Gaho. Ota Saburo is among the best of the generation of artists who studied oil painting and refused to become western copyists, instead forging new a Japanese art which saw some of the most delightful and gently subversive illustrated books you could wish to see.
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Kawabata Ryushi. 少年未来旅行双六 [Shonen Mirai Ryoko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 78x54cm. Some smudges, a short tear in one fold; used but a very decent copy sold
The New Year gift from the boy's magazine Nihon Shonen. A view of travel in the future, this is among my favourites of the travel adventure sugoroku and hard to find in anything like one piece. Doubtless it was a favourite with many others too.
Kawabata did several of the best, most captivating, sugoroku of the period. His career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.
Cars & Planes. 汽車と飛行機 [Kisha to Hikoki]. Osaka, Enomotoshoten 1919 (Taisho 8). 21x15cm publisher's illustrated wrapper; 10pp including cover, colour lithograph illustrations throughout. Natural browning of the cheap paper, an excellent copy. Au$165
Yes, this is called Cars and Planes, or Automobiles and Aeroplanes if you want to be formal, but that train on the cover is too exciting to sulk about. Maybe not the finest printing but these akahons (red books) - cheap and gaudy - do manage to catch the thrill of being alive in a time when everything is new and speedy. This may be a reprint; published a couple of years after the first.
Senjafuda. A printer's sample album of woodcut senjafuda and nosatsu. n.p. [Osaka? 1920s]. 19x27cm card album with manuscript title slip; 135 colour woodcuts mounted on 20 leaves. Put together with long wire staples, it is now pretty much disbound. Browning of the album leaves; three leaves - which have a series of slips with masks - were torn out along the gutter but it is all complete and the fuda prints themselves are in pretty good shape. A bit buggered is the technical description for the condition of the album. The quality of the examples excuses a fair bit of buggerdom. Au$300
Senjafuda - votive slips left at temples and shrines - are a thousand odd years old tradition but in the last couple of hundred years they evolved into elaborate prints made as much to be swapped and traded as pasted on shrine gates. The twenties and thirties maybe represent the peak years before lithography and then self adhesive mass produced stickers took over. Afficiandos commisioned them, companies used them as advertisements and business cards. Designers and printers made them a speciality and typographers loved them. And collectors collected them.
This is a woodcut printer's album. The name and address is stamped at the end. I think it says Bifu Mokuhan (beautiful wood prints) and the name is Kuroda but I won't swear to it. There's some pretty good printing here, on heavy paper and light card, extra embossing here and there and some metallic inks.
Hikifuda. Specimen hikifuda. n.p. [192-?]. Colour lithograph 26x38cm. A bit creased, stab holes on the right indicating it was once in an album. A printed code number on the back. Au$135
A glamorous pair of Taisho women doing what urban Japanese did best: throng the busy exciting streets and shop. These hikifuda - handbills or small advertising posters - were often produced with blank frames for customers to have their own wares and business details printed over. I'd guess this was aimed at the fashion industry.
Hikifuda. Specimen hikifuda. n.p. [192-?]. Colour lithograph 26x38cm. A bit rumpled, stab holes on the right indicating it was once in an album. A printed code number on the back. Au$150
The vivid and exciting world of groceries beautifully depicted. These hikifuda - handbills or small advertising posters - were often produced with blank frames for customers to have their own wares and business details printed over.
Matsuno Sofu. 日東健児攻城戦双六 Nitto Kenji Kojosen Sugoroku. Tokyo, Shonen Kurabu 1924 (Taisho 13). Colour broadside 54x79cm. A bit rumpled and some small holes in folds. On the back is a monochrome game that has some some derring-do illustrations but is pretty dull. sold
Another inspirational game for the young warrior, this was a gift from the boy's magazine Shonen Kurabu (Boy's Club). There is enough wizzbang technology here to keep any boy looking forward to battle. The message is perhaps, fighting is in the future and the future is in the fighting.
Aviation Sugoroku. 訪欧大飛行記念飛行双六 Ho-o Daihiko Kinen Hiko Sugoroku. Osaka, Asahi Shimbun 1925 (Taisho 14). Broadside 54x79cm; printed in colour. Some expected browning, small holes in a fold; pretty good. With two small planes in the bottom margin which could be cut out for playing pieces. Why only two? sold
A sugoroku - racing game - celebrating the first Japanese flight to Europe by four aviators in two planes in 1925. We start in Tokyo and follow the aviators across Russia, zigzag around Europe and finish in Rome. This was issued as a treat by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun who sponsored the flight.
Aso Yutaka. ノンキナトゥサン出吉双六 [Nonki Na Tosan de Kichi Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Hochi Shinbunsha 1925 (Taisho 14). Colour illustrated broadside game (54x79cm). Folded as issued, mild signs of use and browning. With the circular portraits of the characters down the side to be cut out and used as game pieces. Au$475
The new year extra from the newspaper Hochi Shinbun starring Japan's first serial comic strip hero Nonki Na Tosan - usually translated as Easy-going or Lazy Daddy - who first appeared in regular comic strips in the paper the year before.
He owed some debt to Jiggs of Bringing Up Father but uncle Nonto was a thoroughly Japanese scapegrace and loafer who quickly made his way into games, toys and, in 1925, a short animated film. Now our game is presented as a film while the information I've found about the film, and all the toys, suggests that they were piracies; comic characters were not protected by copyright. Perhaps an all round notion that popular comic strips and film are natural partners explains what may or may not be a coincidence.
This may be Nonto's first sugoroku but it certainly wasn't his last. Come the early thirties as the manga craze blossomed our hero was often teamed with Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop - something of a holy trinity. As said, uncle Nonto is a loafer and this game follows him through a series of disastrous attempts at holding down a job.
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Sunakawa Hoshiji. 少女ラヂオ放送双六 [Shojo Radjio Hoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shojo Sekai 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A couple of small holes in folds, quite a good copy. sold
The new year gift from the girl's magazine - Shojo Sekai, this is a celebration of radio - Japan's first radio station, JOAK in Tokyo, illustrated here - began broadcasting in March 1925. By the time readers got this game JOBK in Osaka and JOCK in Nagoya had made test broadcasts.
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Ota Saburo. 世界一週競争双六 [Sekai Isshu Kyoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Kodansha 1926 (Showa 15). Colour printed broadsheet, 54x78cm. Chewed on the middle fold leaving a hole in the right margin and right in the middle. On the back is another game printed in brown. sold
The New Year gift from the magazine Kingu - a sometimes educational round the world game. Yes, that is a gibbon you see in Australia, well drawn and clearly labelled.
Those on the wrong side of the Sydney-Melbourne divide will be pleased to see Melbourne is Australia's major city. Sydney is a lesser town somewhere in Queensland. Those on the other wrong side of the divide will reply that Melbourne is coded green which surely means you don't have to stop there.
Ota Saburo is among the best of the generation of artists who studied oil painting and refused to become a western copyist, instead forging new a Japanese art which saw, starting from around 1900, some of the most delightful illustrated books you could wish to see.
Murayama Tomoyoshi. プロレタリア映画入門 [Puroretaria Eiga Nyumon]. Tokyo, Zen'ei Shobo 1928 (Showa 3), 19x13cm publisher's red wrapper with mounted label (wrapper colour patchy); [8],276pp, loose photo frontispiece, photo illustrations through the text. A nice copy in the original card slipcase. Au$600
First, only contemporary I'm sure, edition of Murayama's introduction to proletarian film - a literal translation of the title. By 1928 Mavo founder Murayama had already had one play banned and soon enough began the first of a series of arrests for troublemaking.
Mavo, a determined regrounding of constructivism - which Murayama had brought back from Germany - in the concerns of real life, was both progenitor and, for a while, companion of specifically proletarian branches of the avant-garde: the Proletarian Art Academy and the Proletarian Art Federation, the Proletarian Film League ... . You will find Murayama's name in the histories of them all.
He made films of course; infuriated architects by designing buildings; designed, wrote and directed plays; wrote novels, theory and criticism like this; painted and made collage constructions; and like many radical, or just outstanding, artists of his generation, made his living illustrating children's books and magazines. It may seem trivial but even the title of this book, using the phonetic transcription of 'proletarian' was a modern typographic departure from the usual three character Kanji - musansha.
Worldcat finds no copy of this outside Japan.
