p3
Kipling. Takeo Takei. ジャングルブック [Janguru Bukku]. Tokyo, Kobunsha 1928 [Showa 3]. Octavo, cloth backed publisher's illustrated card wrapper; illustrated title and endpapers, one colour plate and numerous b/w illustrations and diagrams through the text. A used copy, with smudges and marks. Not bad for these school texts that usually survive in revolting condition.
Shogakusei Zenshu no.49. Cover, endpapers and title page by Takeo Takei Au$50
Here is Kipling's Jungle Book translated by Kikuchi Kan. The illustrations inside by Unno Seiko are not anything to write home about.
Maekawa Senpan. 飛行機の話 - 潜水艦の話 [Hikoku no Hanashi - Sensuikan no Hanashi]. Tokyo, Kobunsha 1928 [Showa 3]. Octavo, publisher's cloth backed illustrated card wrapper; illustrated title, one colour plate, photo and b/w illustrations. Back cover with creases, some signs of use but a rather good copy with the front cover - the important bit - in remarkably good shape. Shogakusei Zenshu no.80. Cover by Maekawa Senpan. sold
The story of aeroplanes and submarines. Maekawa started as a cartoonist and became a founding member of the Sosaku Hanga movement. Like many of his generation he continued to make his living as a commercial illustrator. Here he outshines many of his most celebrated prints.
Hayashi Tadaishi. 世界早廻飛行競争双六 [Sekai Haya Mawari Hiko Kyoso Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1928 (Showa 3). Colour broadsheet 55x76. On the back is another game - a warship battle seemingly taking place among coral atolls - printed in blue. Trimmed a bit close on one side. Au$375
A flying race around the world - so the title tells us - maybe, if you consider the northern hemisphere the whole world. This was the new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen.
Okamoto Ippei. 主婦之友 漫画双六 [Shufunotomo - Manga Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shufunotomosha 1929 (Showa 4). Broadside 64x94cm; colour printed. Rather good. Au$600
A splendid large and lively sugoroku issued as a New Year gift by the magazine The Housewife's Friend. The game is an intriguing melange, to me, of the modern and traditional; whether in conflict or harmony or all round mocked I don't know. The winning post - the joyful family of plump plutocrats with both husband and wife looking remarkably like lucky gods - is the dream of the modern young woman being hatched from an egg in the upper right but she is not the starting point of the game. There seems to be several starting points. Did any young western woman ever dream of being rich and fat?
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.
Sumo sugoroku. Hosokibara Seiki. 大相撲取組双六 [Osumo Torikumi Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Danshi no Tomo 1929 (Showa 4). Colour broadside 40x55cm. Rather good.sold
An uncommon and fun manga sugoroku celebrating sumo, this was the new year gift from the boy's magazine Danshi no Tomo. I haven't found another copy anywhere.
Hosokibara, as well as being a busy and successful manga artist, pioneered manga studies with his 1924 history and pioneered the schism among manga artists: those who saw manga as a continuation of traditional Japanese humorous drawings and those who rejected the notion and insisted that manga was a new international graphic language.
Itagaki Takao. 新しき芸術の獲得 [Atarashiki Geijutsu no Kakutoku]. Tokyo, Tenjinsha 1930. 10x15cm publisher's illustrated wrapper and printed card case; 10,246pp including photo illustrations on 16 plates. Some browning and minor signs of use; quite good. Au$750
First edition of this essay on the machine and new architecture and design, by the champion of modernism in Japan. This was a theme Itagaki pursued through a few books between 1929 and 1933.
Catalogue - watches. Yoshida Watch Company. 計時腕形變 ... Fancy Smart ... Yoshida Watch Company [from the cover]. [Tokyo? 193-?]. 15x22cm publisher's illustrated wrapper; 18pp, illustrated throughout. Pencil inscription on the front, staples disintegrated but rather good with a couple of special offer inserts and a four page illustrated clock leaflet dated 1929 inserted. Au$150
There were two Yoshida watch companies in Tokyo at this time. One, founded in 1920, still exists as a high class salon in Shibuya, and the other, which began as a wholesaler in 1901 started manufacturing watches in the 1930s. They morphed over the decades into Orient watches, a subsidiary of Seiko. This seems the more likely if we have to choose between the two. One inserted slip offers a 50% wholesale discount.
Quite smart, a lot of deco, mostly for men with a few women's watches at the end. A couple of these seem very expensive: 370 yen against a man's watch for less than 20 yen.
Mizushima Yoshinari. Six issues of Fuji Shuho with covers designed by Mizushima. Along with six issues of Musashino Weekly . Tokyo, 1930-31 & 1926-27. 12 issues 19x13cm illustrated wrappers; each issue between eight and twelve pages; photo illustrations. Signs of use but all quite good. sold
Cinemas that showed the latest in foreign and domestic films during the twenties and early thirties often produced regular house papers. These were magnets for young avant-garde artists and designers willing to work for peanuts and little, if any, recognition; some of the best graphic design of the period appears on these ephemeral news letters. By the mid-thirties the papers that survived looked pretty much like any Hollywood dominated film fan magazine.
Four of the Musashima papers (the Musashimakan was - maybe still is - in Shinjuku) are signed 'Sho' but I haven't yet worked out who Sho was. Mizushima was house designer for the Fujikan - in Asakusa - for a while.
Soap. 美活石鹸 [Bikatsu Sekken]. Osaka? c1930? Colour lithograph poster 108x35cm. A couple of short tears in the bottom margin repaired, still a nice bright copy with metal strip and hanging loop at the top. Au$250
I have the feeling that the dancer originally cast to dance the pas de deux with this bar of Bikatsu soap was unable to appear and a frightened understudy from the corps was stuffed into the prima ballerina's costume and pushed out on stage at the last minute.
Poster - dye. 私達の家庭染料 - すみれ染 [Watashitachi no Katei Senryo : Sumire Zome]. [Tokyo? 193-?]. Colour poster 52x36cm. In excellent shape. Au$185
Sumire dye was the home dye of choice for modern vamps.
Poster. サトー式中耕除草機 [Shiki chukojosoki?]. [193-?]. Colour lithograph 79x35cm. A nice copy. sold
Among all the tools of advertising past and present it's easy enough to pick out themes: sex, fear, envy ... but every now and then we are stopped in our tracks. No matter what the period, what the country, what the culture, what the product, all we can do is ask, "What the hell were they thinking?"
I'd be tempted to think that the artist was channeling Victor Mature at his most repellent and date this to the mid fifties but that is the Japanese empire at his feet. This is pre-war. The device - beautifully rendered - is a weeding tool. The figure ... what can I say?
Sunday Chewing Gum. サンデーチウィンガム [Sande Chiuingamu]. Yamazaki Seika Kenkyujo [193-?]. Colour lithograph poster 56x19cm. Some minor creasing and natural browning of the paper, rather good with the original metal strips and loop. Au$85
A shop poster for Sunday Chewing Gam (sic) against an unexpected wintery background. I guess chewing gum really has no season.
Poster. 簡易換算器 [Kani Kansanki?] n.p. [193-?]. Colour lithograph poster 53x25cm. Folded but still quite good. Au$100
It's tempting to see this now as an ominous warning that Australia was under threat from a patent Japanese conversion ruler. Maybe that was the intent - only the Japanese empire glows bright under the shadow of that forbidding ruler.
Posters. 姿勢圖 [Shiseizu]. Teikoku Kyoiku Shiryo Henzan Kyokai [1930s?]. Four colour litho posters 79x55cm. One with two repaired tears; another with a crease, a couple of small knicks or holes; rather good. Au$120
Now this is education from first principles. Girls and boys learn how to stand and how to sit and it's easy to see the difference. From here we can go on to reading, writing and arithmetic. These were produced by the imperial education body who certainly knew what's what.
Tanegami. 最新版寫真種紙 [Saishinban Shashin Tanegami]. n.p. [193-?]. 12 sheets, approximately 24x38cm, of glassine printed in black; 18 or 21 images per sheet. sold
These endearing pictures that sit somewhere between folk and pop art are the negatives from which a kid could develop their own 'photographs' with a toy camera. You have to cut these up to use them but I have seen quite a few unused sheets from the fifties and sixties and occasionally even a cardboard camera still unfolded. I haven't seen many pre-war examples; neither can I discover what a prewar tanegami camera looked like.
If you think all the Mickey and Betty Boop images are no guarantee of pre-war - Betty was popular in Japan long after she was forgotten elsewhere - I draw your attention to the Mussolini dominated sheets that chronicle Italy's African campaigns in the mid thirties. In one Mussolini personally drops bombs on savages from his plane.
Hikifuda. 和洋酒各種 ... 甘利英太郎商店 [Wayo Sake Kakushu ... Amari Eitaro Shoten]. n.p. [c1930?]. Colour lithograph 26x38cm. Quite good. Au$300
These blooming infants are scampering into battle for Japanese and foreign liquors. These hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were often produced with a blank text panel and the customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. The patriotic youngsters may well advertise something more suitable on other examples.
Specimen hikifuda. Hikifuda of women and children shopping. n.p. [1931]. colour broadside 53x38cm. Folded, with stab holes indicating it was once in an album. Au$125
A vivid and heart warming portrait of the urban well-to-do and the rewards of being well-to-do: modernity and shopping. It can be seen as mother daughter life lessons. Many such images in Japan are moral lessons, showing girls and young women their compensation for being good.
These hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with a blank text panel. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. The handy calendar is for 1932.
Suzuki Gyosui. 火星探検大双六 [Kasei Tanken Dai Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1931 (Showa 6). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A little browning and a couple spots; rather good. Au$450
The new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen is a splendid, faithful record of these Japanese boys' expedition to Mars. Artist of many parts, Suzuki had accompanied some intrepid boys on a ferocious zeppelin tour of the world the year before this and made a specialty of battle scenes in later years. Before this he produced gentle night scene woodcuts.
墻壁 : 建築写真類聚 [Shoheki : Kenchiku Shashin Ruiju]. Tokyo, Koyosha 1933 (Showa 8). 19x13cm, loose as issued in publisher's colour printed card folder with ties; [2]pp and 50 photo plates. A bit of browning here and there, a nice copy. sold
This folder devoted to walls is one of a long running series of small photographic monographs on specific architectural subjects. This supposedly a ninth edition - first published in 1919 - and while I don't know about the contents, that cover is new.
The standard series covers were drab, usually (but not always) much duller than the contents. They look like reports issued by one of the more prosaic departments of the public service. This makes it hard to pick through them: even if you read Japanese you have to open each and every one to discern trash from treasure. This is the only one of this series I've seen with such a smart modernist cover and that's significant: traditional Japanese design is now being advertised consciously as modernist patterns.
Packaging. Two albums of Japanese packaging samples. n.p. [1934-35]. Two commercial scrapbooks 30x22cm, card covers and pin binding; I: 29 leaves covered both sides with examples of labels and packaging. II: 29 leaves of which 26 are covered both sides with labels and packaging. On various papers including translucent papers and two large examples on creped paper; many of these are quite large and are folded in. Clearly used, signs that a couple are missing, some of the large folding specimens have tears and one loosely inserted large sample on fragile paper is fragmented. Nonetheless, a most appealing, attractive and useful compilation. sold
Used certainly but these are not a collector's albums of old labels. They were obviously unused, many are proofs on paper that doesn't resemble packaging or label paper. I'd say these are a trade, maybe the printer's, collection. At the end of each album is a dated inscription but the name has been erased.
Wada Sanzo. 色名総鑑 (増訂版) [Shikimei Sokan (Zoteiban)]. Tokyo, Hakubisha 1935 (Showa 10). 19x11mm publisher's cloth case with 171 mounted colour samples on 57 accordian folding leaves and card bound book; 182,8pp and a folding table. Colour samples named in Japanese, English and occasionally French or German; table of multi language lists of colour names. A couple of library stamps inside but quite good in publisher's printed card case. sold
Second edition, enlarged and revised, of Wada's first serious attempt at colour nomenclature published in 1931. I can tell you there are a few more pages and eleven more colour chips in this edition. There seem to be significant changes in the text volume but I can't read them. Several colours have changed - that is the hue, tint or shade, not the name - and seem to this untrained eye to accord better with their names, though I would still pick an argument with his 'fawn'.
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'.
Poster. 大阪優良染織見本市 [Osaka Yuryo Senshoku Mihonichi]. [Osaka 1936?]. Colour poster 77x53cm. Folded, some browning and offsetting; pretty good. Au$400
This sinister warning of looming evil advertises the Osaka textile trade fair. Signed in print by the artist but I can't read it.
Shop windows. 店舗陳列照明競技会 : 入賞写真集 [Tenpo Chinretsu Shomei Kyogikai : Nyushu Shashin Shu]. Sendai City Electricity 1937 (Showa 12). 18x26cm publisher's stiff wrapper with cord ties; 14 leaves, being a title, a page of portraits and 12 plates of shop windows, most two a page. These are original photographic prints on glossy or textured card. Scuff on the front cover. Au$165
This appears to be the fifth Sendai city shop window competition sponsored by the power and water authority. That's pretty much all I can tell you. I can't find a mention of anything about the competition anywhere.
Exhibition - Toyama 1936. 富山市主催日満産業大博覧会協賛会誌 [Toyamashi Shusai Nichiman Sangyo Daihakurankai Kyosankai Shi]. Toyama 1938 (Showa 13). 23x16cm publisher's cloth and card box; numerous photo illustrations, colour plates, folding plans and elevations. A nice copy. Au$650
The official report on the 1936 Japan-Manchuria Great Industrial Exhibition. Though blighted with too many portraits of personages, this is still an excellent record of thirties Japanese expo architecture and design with coloured pictures of posters, advertising, tickets and so on, plans and elevations of buildings, lighting, and photo views. There is also the obligatory Hatsusaburo colour folding birds-eye panorama.
Worldcat finds two copies outside Japan, both in California.
Fuyuki Kennosuke 構図と作画の実際 [Tozu to Sakuga no Jissai]. Tokyo, Genkosha 1939 (Showa 14). 20x16cm publisher's cloth and illustrated card case; b/w photo illustrations throughout. A nice copy. Au$475
First edition of this practical guide to composition of the final cropped photographic image with one of the most baffling and maybe sinister cover pictures of all time. Why is that woman in the sensational shoes lying on her back in that field. And how did she get there with those shoes still clean? Why is that woman in the background on her belly and what is she looking at? What happened? Surely nothing good.
Onchi Koshiro designed this book. He designed several of Genkosha's photography books including, I presume, his own.
Worldcat finds a later book on composition by Fuyuki but not this.
Fukuda Katsuji & Morita Tama. 銀座 [Ginza]. Tokyo, Genkosha 1941 (Showa 16). 26x19cm publisher's boards, dustwrapper and slipcase; 36,136pp, b/w photo plates. The dustwrapper has been expertly laid down; it has a chip from the corner of the back and a bit of damage without loss on the front. The box has a little wear around the edges. A pleasing copy. sold
First edition of this photographic essay on the Ginza by Fukuda paired with a word essay by Morita. If you need a sales pitch I recommend the British Museum curator's comment in the museum's entry for this book. Which turns out to be the sales pitch by Titus Boeder of Maggs. Worldcat finds only the Diet Library entry and I can add only the BM entry.
Sawai Ichisaburo. 双六 - 大東亜共栄圏めぐり [Sugoroku - Dai Toa Kyoeiken Meguri]. Tokyo, Ie no Hikari 1944 (Showa 19). Colour broadside 38x53cm. Natural browning of the paper, a few pinholes, rather good. Au$400
This tour of the Great East Asia Mutual Prosperity Zone was the new year gift from the magazine Ie no Hikari. Despite the obvious bite into production quality by the end of 1943 and the disappearance of Japanese possessions further east than the western side of Papua New Guinea we, or rather children, could see that Japan was still a much loved friend throughout Asia.
Worldcat finds two copies, one in Australia and one in Singapore, but not the Harvard Yenching copy.
Poster. 国民の覚悟 [Kokumin no Kakugo]. n.p. [194-?]. Handpainted poster 110x80cm, in coloured inks. Top and bottom edges ragged but nothing important gone. sold
A fabulous handmade 'be prepared' poster - the title translates as 'national preparedness' - with lift up overlays. This lets us see that under the grotesque or sinister masks are an implacable Japanese couple, fierce and serene in turn. By the end of the war civil defence equipment pretty much consisted of hoes, rakes and brooms.
