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Kimoto Motoo. 新案 明治婦人双六 [Shin'an Meiji Fujin Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Fujin Sekai 1910 (Meiji 43). Colour lithograph 55x79cm. Rumpled, a short tear repaired; used but very decent. Au$200
An aspirational record of the life of the modern Meiji woman. Women do work, as telephonists, as teachers, typesetters, maybe even as a doctor, and all can be balanced with a satisfying family life. This was the new year gift from the magazine, Fujin Sekai: Woman's World.
Nosatsu - Senjafuda. An album of 30 mounted colour woodcuts - elaborate large versions of nosatsu. n.p. [c1910-30]. 17x25cm album of collage pattern papers; 32 mounted colour woodcuts of which 23 are approximately 16x23cm and the rest are half that size:16x11cm. A few spots and signs of use. sold
A slender but pleasing album of high class nosatsu from the revival period: about 1900 to 1930. These are prints of equal quality to anything from earlier periods, some with extra embossing and one or two with lacquer or metallic overprinting. Those with dates range from 1913 to 1926 and the slip on the back cover is dated 1931. It wasn't good enough to go into the album.
It's a universal law of humanity that as soon as someone makes more than two of anything a collector is born. And as soon as two or more collectors exist an association and an industry is formed. No-one knows these facts and does a better job with them than the Japanese.
Nosatsu - 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 more to be swapped and traded as pasted on shrine gates. The tens and twenties 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.
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. An excellent copy. Au$1500
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.
Hikifuda. Hikifuda of a woman driving a motor car. n.p. [1912]. Colour woodcut 53x37cm. Old folds, rumpling and a couple of small repairs. Au$800
A while ago I offered a 1914 printed hikifuda something like this and asked whether anyone had seen an earlier picture of a Japanese woman driving a car? Now the answer is: I have. Cars and planes were the password for modernity through the Taisho, especially in advertising like this, but sleek women were driven by sleek husbands or chauffeurs. This is radical stuff. It's not until well into the twenties that women behind the wheel became common. Common but not really acceptable. Cars were driven by Mogas - modern girls - louche young women with bobbed hair and short skirts: flappers. The history of early Japanese women motorists, in English, is blank. Can some expert out there help?
These hikifuda - small posters or extravagant handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. In this case it was Tamachi Taya of Kaneko-mura. The handy calendar is for 1913.
Catalogue - Iron gates, fences &c. Handa Shonosuke Shoten. 製御門扉鉄柵類 [Sentetsuseio Monpi Tetsusakurui?]. Tokyo, Handa Shonosuke Shoten [c1913]. Lithograph broadside 40x56cm. A couple of small blotches, still a nice copy. Au$100
A handsome array of iron gates, fences and doors. Very similar - but not quite the same - to a broadside from the same place dated 1913.
Exhibition - Tokyo 1914. 東京大正博覧会各館之光景 [Tokyo Taisho Hakurankai Kaku Kan no Kokei] Tokyo, Shobundo March 1914 (Taisho 3). Colour lithograph 39x55cm. A bit rumpled with a couple of short tears in the margins. Rather good. Au$150
Fine views of the psychedelic Taisho exposition - to celebrate the enthronement of the emperor - held in Ueno Park, which introduced any number of technical advances to the Japanese, including an escalator and a cable car.
Once the eyes stop watering these acid trip views of late Meiji and Taisho Japan start to make sense. They may have started as a cynical grab at attention for cheap, often nasty, prints but after a while they become a celebration of being in a place and time so exciting that no portrait can be too brightly, too impossibly, coloured.
Photographs may be in some way a more reliable record but no photographer could so capture the thrill of being out and about in Tokyo on a Taisho afternoon.
Printing. 印刷大鑑 [Insatsu Taikan]. [Osaka, Nihon Insatsu Kaisha 1915] (Taisho 4)? Folio (39x27cm) publisher's colour printed bevelled boards (minor signs of use); 9 preliminary leaves including three colour plates and a preface in French, 86 specimen leaves by different printers on different papers is a variety of techniques: chromolithography, four colour process, photo engraving, gravure, embossing, etc, with two plates on metal sheets, 6 more leaves at the end including a couple of plates. A touch of adhesion to a couple of chromo plates, inner hinges sometime strengthened with brocade strips. Label removed from inside back cover - probably the colophon. Au$1100
A luxurious bit of showing off by the Japanese printing industry announcing that they have done their apprenticeship with western printers and now match them in skill. Fine printing, book work, advertising ... some kitsch and some very smart.
With this copy I discover this book exists in two forms: a 'deluxe' version with 101 specimen leaves bound in silk and this version in a printed version of the silk and ties with 86 specimens.
For such a grand book this was not distributed as widely as you might expect. Worldcat finds four copies, all following the same catalogue entry dated 1916. I know that the two Australian copies are bound in silk and are dated 1915 but I don't know what the two US copies are. CiNii finds five copies in Japanese libraries, and my searches of specialist libraries found no more.
Kawabata Honami 新案お伽見世物双六 [Shin'an Otogi Misemono Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Yonen no Tomo 1916 (Taisho 5). Colour broadside 53x78cm. Some browning and a couple of small flaws but pretty good. Au$385
This utopian view of a kids' paradise was the New Year gift from the magazine Yonen no Tomo. It's hard to find. This is a model for a new kind of fun palace that has a lot in common with the modern department store, which usually had fun for kids and a cafe at the top. In this case all the boring stuff - like clothes - has been stripped out and the whole emporium turned over to fun.
Catalogue - medical and dental equipment. Kawai Shoten, Tokyo. Caialogue [sic] 醫療器械圖譜 (?) No. 5. [Iryokikkai Zufu?]. Tokyo, Kawai Shoten 1917 (Taisho 6). 22x15cm publisher's printed wrapper (covers somewhat shabby & ragged); [4],200pp, illustrated throughout. A used but decent copy. Au$200
An extensive catalogue of medical and dental equipment and all the necessary ancillaries - furniture, laboratory equipment, a few artificial limbs, and so on. This is Kawai's fifth catalogue but I can't find a record of any of them.
Fujiwara Ritsuta. 空界征服双六 [Sorakai Seifuku Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 79x55cm. A nice copy with a nice copy of the Shonen magazine which this game accompanied. Au$600
A delight - the rigours of flying school explained with the careful attention to truth and detail of a Heath Robinson. This was the new year gift from the magazine Shonen.
Sugiura Hisui. 少年世界競争双六 [Shonen Sekai Kyoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Sekai 1919 (Taisho 8). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A couple of small nicks in a margin; rather good with playing pieces intact in the left margin. Au$400
Sports, sports and more sports in this game - the new year gift from the boys' magazine Shonen Sekai. If you look at portraits of the champion of modern design and fastidious dandy, Sugiura, it's hard to imagine anyone less inclined to jump and sweat. But maybe I misjudge him.
ボクラノノリモノ [Bokura Norimono]. Osaka, Tamura Kyube 1919 (Taisho 8). 17x19cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper, rivet bound; six double folded leaves, including cover, giving 12 pages of full page colour illustrations, printed colophon and advert leaf added as back cover (this with a closed tear). Au$300
First printing of this rare and appealing cheap picture book of machines and people on the move. A curious new art approach with more than a hint of the emerging sosaku - or artist produced - woodcut movement which abolished the divide between artist, block cutter and printer. Expression became more important than technical perfection.
The series was produced under the directorship of writer Sazanami Iwaya but the artist remains a mystery to me.
Sugoroku. ヂアサン双六 [Diasan Sugoroku]. Osaka, Morishita 1921 (Taisho 10) Colour broadside 54x78cm. A nice copy. Au$450
A rare and cheerful promotional game for New Year from a friendly drug company. I don't know exactly what Diasan did - it was some kind of digestive - but it clearly made you healthy and happy.
Advertising Sugoroku. Sugoroku issued by the Osaka Mainichi newspaper Sunday supplement Osaka, Mainichi Shimbun 1922 (Taisho 11). Broadsheet printed in brown. Several small tears in folds and edges, not bad for such a flimsy game. Au$30
A cheap game advertising local businesses printed in that grim brown that newspapers fondly imagined was more lively and attractive than black. It was part of the supplement for January 1st - far drabber than those colourful sheets produced by other papers and magazines and given as a new year gift. On the other side are typical photos of the Sunday supplement kind including puppies in the snow.
Morita Hisashi. 懸賞附少年野球雙六 [Kensho Tsuki Shonen Yakyu Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Sekai Shonen 1923 (Taisho 12). Colour broadside 55x79cm. Signs of use: a couple of small holes in folds and ink blotches. Au$350
An early baseball game; baseball made cameo appearances in earlier games devoted to sport but the earliest baseball game I've so far seen was the 1921 new year sugoroku also produced by the boy's magazine Shonen Sekai. Clearly it was a hit - this was the new gift only two years later.
Morita was a busy illustrator and art director for the Takarazuka Revue through the twenties.
Exhibition - Tokyo 1922. 平和記念東京博覧会事務報告 [Heiwa Kinen Tokyo Hakurankai Jimu Hokoku]. Tokyo Fucho 1924 (Taisho 13). Two volumes 26x19cm, publisher's embossed wrappers (browned); 681pp, heaps of illustrations: folding colour plans, architectural elevations and plans, photo plates, etc. Browning and foxing expected from the paper but still a rather good fresh copy. Au$1350
The official report on the 1922 Tokyo Memorial Peace Exposition is the very model of what an official report on an exhibition should be. You could just about rebuild the whole thing from this. The detail extends to measured drawings of light fittings, plans of the garden beds and coloured reproductions of the tickets and advertising.
The 1922 Peace Memorial Exhibition, celebrating the League of Nations and a bright future, was the most lavish national Expo ever held. The pavilions were a mix of stately, ultra modern and funfair fairy tale.
Hayashi Tadaichi. 少年帝都復興双六 [Shonen Teito Fukko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1924 (Taisho 13). Colour printed broadside 55x79cm. A much played copy with some holes in folds, several short tears and nicks around the edges. Au$200
Not a great copy but have you seen a better piece of visionary urban planning? This was the the new year gift from Nihon Shonen (Japanese Boy) and what better way to mark the new year than rebuilding the freshly devastated Tokyo along utopian lines? The title more or less translates as Boy's Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital and I'd move there in a flash.
This has been thought out. Public transport is a marvel with canals, aerial cable cars and trains tearing round the city and on and off ferries. The airport is sensibly at flight level, which must save enormous amounts of fuel and I think the floating palace is an overnight shuttle to America. Public health and safety is well considered: the fire brigade operates from a tower with a water cannon that can reach across the city to extinguish fires and the hospital will come to you, no matter the terrain. Culture and sport are catered for and the traditional at heart will be comforted to see industry over on the wrong side of the tracks, well away from the houses on the hill, where it belongs. Two essential Tokyo survivors are the start and finish: Tokyo railway station and the imperial palace.
I don't approve of the alarm on the clock tower but no-one can be unimpressed by the solar heating plant. Boy or not, this is the town for me.
Sugoroku. さいけん双六 [Saiken Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Fujimoto Corporation 1925 (Taisho 14). Colour broadside 78x53cm. Used, rumpled and a couple of short marginal tears repaired but very decent. With the playing pieces in the margin. Au$300
A graphic serenade to the virtues of thrift, saving and buying bonds, this was produced by the broking firm Fujimoto for their customers and is labelled 'Not For Sale'. Luckily for the artist and for us some cautionary vices were allowed to spice up a staid game: wine, women and the ponies.
Asano Kaoru. 新東京名所巡り競争双六 [Shin Tokyo Meisho Meguri Kyoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Kodansha 1925 (Taisho 14). Colour broadside 54x79cm. A few small holes in folds; quite good with the playing pieces in the margin. sold
This fun tour around Tokyo was the new year gift from the brand new Kingu magazine. It begins at the railway station and ends not far away at the imperial palace but there is plenty to see on the way. Following the north east route will take you past the Women's University and - more important - Kingu's headquarters.
Okamoto Ippei. 山と海 [Yama to Umi] (Mountain & Sea). Osaka, Asahi Shimbun 1926 [Taisho 15]. Quarto publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 40pp, b/w illustrations throughout. Natural browning of the paper; a rather good copy. Au$100
A comic commentary on the Japanese out and about on holiday and I suspect many other things beyond me. There is a cast of recurring characters and it's evident from the cover that class wars are at play - there is a drawing inside of a plutocrat mugging a beggar - but there's a lot going on in these busy pages that are fun to look at but incomprehensible to me.
Ippei, radical and scallywag, was the king of newspaper cartooning as Rakuten ruled the magazines in Taisho and early Showa Japan. It was Ippei that brought the American comic strip to Japan and he heads, with Rakuten, the lists of idols and inspiration of many modern manga artists.
Kabashima Katsuichi. 火星國探検競争双六 [Kasei Kuni Tanken Kyoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Kurabu 1927 (Taisho 16). Colour broadsheet; 79x54cm. On the back is another game in monochrome. A rather good copy. Au$750
I proclaim this the masterpiece of Kabashima - a busy illustrator and cartoonist for a few decades. He may be best known as the creator of the comic or manga series starring Shochan - which looked a lot like Herge before Herge did - or perhaps as the artist of ships and planes in turmoil but this meandering voyage to Mars via Saturn tops them all.
This was the new year gift from the kids' magazine Shonen Kurabu (kids' club) and, being printed well in advance, is dated Taisho 16 rather than Showa 2 - the more proper date for 1927. The game on the back is the adventures of Yaji and Kita on the Tokaido. It's neither here nor there.
Okano Sakae [cover design]. 算術の話 [Sanjutsu no Hanashi]. Tokyo, Kobunsha 1928 [Showa 3]. Octavo, cloth backed publisher's illustrated card wrapper; illustrated title in red, one colour plate and numerous b/w illustrations and diagrams through the text. Browning and signs of use; a pretty good copy.
Shogakusei Zenshu no.73. Au$150
The Shogakusei Zenshu, or Complete Works for Elementary Schools, runs to some 88 volumes of educational texts and literature - much of this in translation; few of them seem elementary. This one is arithmetic. I believe that if my maths texts looked like this my education would have been much more rewarding.
This masterpiece of a cover is by Okano Sakae, one of the generation of artists who came through the western painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts at the beginning of the century, later a pupil of Kuroda Seiki, and collaborator with fellow Hakubakai students on the five volume Nihon Meisho Shasei Kiko.
