p5
Hirai Fusando. 糊の友 - 繊維のホルモン [Nori no tomo - sen'i no horumon]. n.p. [193-?]. Colour poster 54x19cm. Au$100
A cheery shop poster advertising ... I'm not sure what. I can't figure out whether you swallow this stuff or use it with your laundry. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's laundry but the mention of hormones was confusing.
I'm pretty definite this is by the cartoonist and illustrator Hirai Fuzando, it's definitely his character - the housewife who knows everything.
KRASNOV, Pyotr Nikolayevich, Oki Atsuo & Onchi Koshiro. 双頭の鷲より赤旗へ [Soto no Washi Yori Akahata e]. Tokyo, Ars 1930. Octavo publisher's printed cloth in white, yellow, red and black; printed card slipcase; title page printed in red and black. A bit of wear to the case, a touch of browning or dustiness to the book. Neat owner's name on box and back endpaper. A rather good copy. sold
First and probably only edition - and near impossible to find in decent condition - of volume one of Krasnov's virulent anti-communist novel, published in English in two volumes as 'From Double Eagle to Red Flag'. Volume two in Japanese apparently never made it to print. A splendid bit of book design by Onchi Koshiro and a curious convergence of over sized personalities.
Krasnov was the commander of the Russian army who carried his fight against the Bolsheviks to Europe and cozied up with the Nazis. He surrendered to the British with the promise he wouldn't be turned over to the Soviets. He was and was executed in 1947.
The translator, Oki Atsuo, was a decidedly nationalist poet whose military songs and verses won awards during the war and seemingly worked against him afterwards. He ended up writing school songs.
If artist, printmaker and designer, Onchi, had any politics they haven't been translated into English. He was at the head of modern Japanese art from the teens pretty much up until his death in 1955. Still he has managed to create what could be taken as a strident fascist emblem until we look at the box where that Soviet flag looks almost heroic behind those bars. Onchi designed a few books for Ars between 1919 and 1934 and given their house styles for their art titles - from drab to downright ugly - I wonder why they hired him in the first place and then why they didn't use him a lot more.
Note how Onchi used the as yet unset modernisation of reading and writing. The title reads left to right on the box and on the title it reads left to right on the black band and reverses on the red band.
Catalogue - Photo albums. Seiundo Co. Tokyo. Catalogue of Album. Tokyo [193-?]. 16x10.5cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper with metal pin; 18 leaves printed one side, b/w photo illustrations. Au$50
A neat little catalogue of photo and other albums in a varitey of styles, available in different sizes. Japan was by the thirties camera crazy as well having a large population of avid ephemera collectors. A good time to be in the album business.
Tozawa Tatsuo. 世界早廻り双六 [Sekai Haya Mawari Sugoroku]. San-nen no Shogakusei 1930 (Showa 5). Colour broadside 79x55cm. Complete with playing pieces in the margin. sold
A jolly round the world adventure for kids with a modicum of realism provided by photographs.
Shochiku Revue - Shochiku Shogo Kageki. 楽劇 [Gakugeki]. Shochiku Review [English subtitle for two issues]. Tokyo, October 1931; April, August & September 1932. Four issues octavo, publisher's illustrated wrappers; numerous photo illustrations in all, folding colour advertisement tipped into one. Minor signs of use, staples rusted; rather good. Au$100
The all female company Shochiku Shojo Kageki (Girl's Opera) was set up in Osaka in 1921 and in Tokyo in 1928 by the film and theatre moguls in imitation of the Takarazuka Revue. While they stole the concept, the Tokyo Shochiku company was more adventurous, more louche, more raunchy. They were after all performing for Tokyo's sophisticated lowlife rather than tourists in the provinces. It took a long time for soft-centred glitzy sweetness to win out but the Shochiku closed in 1990 and the Takarazuka still reigns supreme.
Kon Wajiro & Yoshida Kenkichi. 考現学採集 (モデルノロヂオ). [Kogengaku Saishu (Moderunorojio). Tokyo, Shun'yudo 1931 (Showa 6). Quarto publisher's cloth blocked in red and white (spine a touch darkened and rubbed), shabby but solid illustrated slipcase; [2],323pp, photo illustrations, hundreds of line drawings and diagrams (one with colours added), endpaper map. sold
First edition of the companion to the 'Modernologio' of the previous year - the gospel of Modernology. Kon and Yoshida here collect the data to extend their extraordinary encyclopaedia of the people of modern Tokyo. Their thesis was that those who do the planning, designing and building know nothing of what people actually do, what they own and how they use those things - how they live and who they are.
I can't imagine anything you might ever think about and a lot you would never think about that isn't collected here. How you walk, where you walk, what you carry, how you carry it, where you dance, how you dance, how you sit, what is on your shelves, in your cupboards ...
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Wada Sanzo. 色名総鑑 [Shikimei Sokan]. Tokyo, Shunjusha 1931 (Showa 6). 195x115mm publisher's case with title label with 160 mounted colour samples on 56 accordian folding leaves and wrappered book; 178pp and some tables (two folding). Some browning as usual and still a nice copy. Colour samples named in Japanese, English and occasionally French or German; two of the tables are multi language lists of colour names. The top edge of both parts are gilded and the apparently plain paper lining of the case has a pattern of transparent glazed shapes printed on it. sold
First edition of Wada's first serious attempt at colour nomenclature. Wada, though at the top of the art ladder in Japan insisted on pursuing new directions and founded the Japan Standard Color Association, now the Japan Color Research Institute, in 1927. In these early years science, art and aesthetics went hand in hand. Yet another significant book missed by the peurile Osborne 'Books on Colour Since 1500'.
Wada Sanzo. 色彩配合板 [Shikisai Haigo-ban]. Tokyo &c [193-?]. 250x175mm, publisher's colour illustrated boards which open to three panels: one with explanatory text; a framed panel with eight colour strips which holds eight separate coloured cellophane(?) filters in card frames; and a rotating volvelle with cellophane colour filters. The three panels separated, a couple of cellophane pieces cracked. A definitely used copy but a complete copy. sold
A nifty device for blending colours. Wada is coupled here with the British Colour Council - both names appear. Wada founded the Japan Standard Color Association - now the Japan Color Research Institute - in 1927, before the BCC existed and the relationship may be known to some Japanese researcher but I can't find out anything. Nor can I find any record of this.
COLYER, William Thomas & Kagawa Minosuke. 世界の脅威アメリカニズム [Sekai no Kyoi Amerikanizumu]. Tokyo, Oasha 1931 (Showa 6). Octavo publisher's printed wrapper (somewhat rumpled) and slipcase; 354pp. Signs of use and expected browning of the paper, a pretty decent copy. sold
A translation by Kagawa of Colyer's 'Americanism - a World Menace' first published in London in 1922. Colyer was an emigre English socialist to the U.S. in 1915 and became one of the first victims of the youthful Edgar J. Hoover - tasked with rounding up communist terrorists in 1920. His first attempt to have Colyer and his wife deported failed but he succeeded in 1922 and Colyer arrived back in Britain embittered and radical.
Paraphrasing a little Colyer's basic tenets of Americanism we find: white racial pride aka patriotism; money equals merit; the glorification of democracy as an abstract divorced from practical control by the people; lawlessness decorated by "flowery and meaningless names" such as "the upsurging of the great heart of America."
Kagawa, the translator, remains a blank to me apart from the name on this book. It might be protective pseudonym. Oasha published mostly worthy books between about 1930 and 1934, few as radical as this, but they resurfaced after the war with a couple of Marxist titles between 1947 and 49.
働く婦人 [Hataraku Fujin]. No. 1 to no. 5 and no. 11. Tokyo, Nihon Puroretaria Bunka, Jan - Nov 1932 (Showa 7). Six issues in colour illustrated publisher's wrappers 22x15cm; contents range from about 140pp to 86pp, b/w illustrations, monochrome photo illustrations. Expected browning of the cheap paper, signs of use but all rather good. Au$900
Maybe six elevenths - or six thirteenths, or not - of the whole run of this trouble making left wing magazine for the Working Woman. It's hard to untangle. I can't find any complete set of these original copies.
A reprint, probably not complete, was made in 1980 which seems to include eleven issues running from January 1932 to an April/May 1933 double issue - eight for 1932 and three for 1933. I found a mention that no issues appeared some months. The issues here are numbered by the month they appeared - which may mean there are gaps in the numbering of a complete run or that there are issues no-one has found. The holdings of 13 university libraries in Japan put together seem to add up to v1(1 -10) for 1932 and v2(1-3) for 1933.
Being a communist in Japan in the thirties was a fraught business and the foundation of the Nihon Puroretaria Bunka Renmei - Japanese Proletarian Culture Federation - late 1931 and the flourish of Proletarian books and magazines in 1932 and early 1933 was a last stand of the left. Being gaoled was one thing, being tortured and killed another.
In her novel 1932 no Haru (Spring 1932) writer Miyamoto Yuriko incorporated her editorship of early issues of this magazine, arrest after the April issue (on the right in the picture here), and the torture and death of poet Konno Dairiki. This wasn't her last arrest and Konno's wasn't the last death.
Virtually nothing written in the last few decades on Japanese culture in the twentieth century doesn't mention 'Working Woman.' No-one it seems has read or even seen all of them.
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Nakata Shunzo & others. 標準商業美術 [Hyojun Shogyo Bijutsu]. Tokyo, Teikoku Shoin 1933 Two volumes oblong quarto, publisher's light card colour printed wrappers; three preliminary leaves in each and 45 plates (23 & 22) printed on one side. Some browning and minor signs of use. sold
Two thirds of a set of lessons in commercial art, there is a third volume. It possibly wasn't considered anything special when new, which may help explain its scarcity now. It ranges from basics to highly finished examples of all sorts of commercial work.
Commercial art in Japan meant much more than it does to us - so it goes from packaging, graphics, posters and advertising to shop architecture and display. A certain amount is the latest in French, German and occasionally British design but the best is of course Japanese. And it is well printed, with a fair bit of colour and some silver and gold.
Advertising Sugoroku. 商賣繁榮雙六 [Shobai Hanei Sugoroku]. Tokyo printed, Notagawa Ekimae Shoten 1935 (Showa 10). Colour broadside 79x55cm. Minor signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$400
A proper aspirational sugoroku for girls and young women. Prosperity is the reward for the perfect modern girl: good husband, handsome family and shopping, shopping shopping.
This shopping game advertises the glamorous range of businesses in Notagawa - now part of Higashiomi, more or less half way between Kyoto and Nagoya. The same game, relabelled, was used for businesses of Matsumoto City.
A very similar - a few panels the same - but not so modern game - more kimonos, fewer cars, furs and bobbed or marcelled heads - with the same title was issued the year before by the newspaper Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun for readers in the Iwamurata-machi area. You don't waste a good idea and a decent bit of artwork.
Wada Sanzo. 配色総鑑 [Haishoku Sokan]. Tokyo, Hakubisha 1933-34 (Showa 8-9). Six volumes (198x130mm) of plates in publisher's cloth titled in gilt; a 40 page booklet in wrappers and four colour sample plates on two folded card leaves all together in publisher's folding case with clasp and title label. The plate volumes constitute a total of 348 accordian folding card leaves with mounted colour samples arranged in pairs in the first two volumes, trios in the next two and quartets in the last two. The colour samples are all mounted and captioned in Japanese and English.
The outer case somewhat browned and shabby but solid, the two separate cards browned and touches of browning around edges of the other other card mounts. A few annotations here and there. A most respectable set and extra complete with loose printed slips, one of which is errata, and a card meant to be cut up; virtually all loose tissue guards present. sold
First edition of this fabulous dictionary or grammar of colour - there is a recent reprint - a sophisticated synthesis of western and Japanese theory and usage. Wada's place in Japanese art has been assured since his 1907 prize winning painting Nanpu - which in western terms sits somewhere between Winslow Homer and beefcake pinup, much as Winslow Homer did - but Wada got more interesting as he got older and a return to Japanese painting in the twenties along with his design work and colour research pushed along an increasingly assured generation of artists with a grasp of west and east and an intent of their own.
Wada's name was unfamilar in the west until recent years but you don't have look far to see his ideas at work, spread by second and third hand borrowings. Unknown to the amazingly bad Osborne 'Books on Colour Since 1500'.
Sugoroku. 有名商店案内賣呉録 [Yumei Shoten Annai u Kure-Roku]. Tokyo, Hirohidesha 1936 (Showa 11). Colour broadsheet 54x79cm. Chewed in the left margin and along a couple of folds, marring a bright copy. Au$210
A rare cheerful shopping game advertising the businesses of Horinouchi-cho. As there are any number of Horinouchi-chos spotted around Japan I'm not sure which one but as this seems to have co me from the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun I'm guessing it's around Tokyo. I came across one other copy of the game but it has a different title and advertises different businesses in a different area.
Sugiura Hisui, Takeo Takei, Takeshi Kimata &c. わが子の歴史 [Wagako no Rekishi]. Osaka, Mitsokushi [1939] (Showa 14). 27x19cm publisher's cloth backed boards decorated in gilt and black in mildy worn decorated box; 84pp illustrated in colour throughout by Takei and others; cover design by Sigiura. Partly filled in with pencil, two chubby hands have been traced in ink; occasional browning or offsetting; a remarkably good copy. Au$300
This book was child of the Mitsokushi department store, first published in 1928, reprinted fairly often and presumably updated. One of Takei's illustrations is dated 1934.
Who was the titan that came up this genius innovation - the predigested baby album? Does he or she have a shrine in the marketing hall of fame? They - books like this - seem to have popped up round the world in the twenties - were they earlier?
This has one foot planted in revoltingly cute of course but, thanks to Takei and a couple of fellow artists, enough pages keep the other foot in stylish and exciting.
Worldcat finds one copy - a 1938 edition at Princeton - and NDL finds two - 1928 and 1936 editions - in Japanese libraries.
While doing homework on this I came across a poor - so to speak - descendant, the Blot. For a mere 20,000 yen you get something that looks suspiciously like a leather filofax - if you're old enough to remember the filofax - no cute pictures, no revolting sentiment. Poor kids.
The atomic bomb
Takeo Takei. 原子爆弾 [Genshi Bakudan]. Tokyo, Domei Tsushinsha September 1945. Octavo printed wrapper; 32pp including wrapper, untrimmed and loose (as issued or a never issued copy?). Expected browning of the paper, a couple of corner creases and short tears to the spine. Au$2500
Published as Domei Sosho No.1 by Domei - the national news agency - on 20th September 1945, apparently the day before the US occupation censorship had time to be fully implemented. Domei Sosho no.2 was on the Potsdam declaration and there, I think, the series ended.
I have read that 200,000 copies of this were printed. Worldcat locates no copies - though there are copies in perhaps nine Japanese libraries - and it doesn't appear in the catalogue of the Prange collection - proclaimed the world's largest collection of occupation era documents, collected by the official historian to the occupation.
There is nothing much to be found in English on Takeo or his pamphlet. As I can best figure, the story is that Takeo was a scientific and/or political correspondent for Domei and spoke English. He and a colleague listened in to allied broadcasts, translated Truman's statement on the bombing of Hiroshima and was the first to tell the Japanese government that the "new bomb" was an atomic bomb.
Takeo's widow and son published a memorial book in 1995 with background and contemporary papers which doesn't seem to have worked its way to writers in English. From my stumbling through a review of that book I get the impression that Takeo was seen as an apologist for the US and their use of the bomb which was unfair. He was attempting to give as objectively as possible as much information as he could and what information he had came only from what could he could scrape together from radio broadcasts. How much of this view of him was long after the fact I don't know. He had been or became - I'm not clear on this - a communist journalist which can't have endeared him to any authorities.
There is a modern facsimile of this which may or may not be related to the book published by Mrs Takeo - it seems likely. That should not be mistaken for this. Neither should Takeo Takei the journalist be confused with Takeo Takei the illustrator.
And here ends, I think, Japan and the west in the way it had worked for centuries. Whether or not it is true that this beat the US occupation censors by one day this pretty well marks the end of Japanese people choosing what information could and should be circulated within the country for some years. Physicist Sagane Ryokichi's booklet on the bomb published only days later had four pages quietly removed by the occupation censors. By the time control was handed back Japan had been force fed a massive dose of sucrose and Americanism pretty much as described by William Colyer. Of course it isn't that simple but some day around September 21 marks when the Japanese stopped fighting with each other about what was of value in the west and were forced to take whatever America gave them.
