art japan

Hardcover. Taschen, 1st, 2006, Book: N, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 792 pages. This volume covers the second half of the 1970s, an era marked by the oil crisis and the related global economic crisis. For the first time, architecture and design dealt with alternative resources, ecological building methods, and recyclable materials. Nevertheless synthetics remained present in many fields, especially in interior design. Examples of projects featured are the postmodern and lightflooded buildings by Richard Meier, the modernistic buildings by Foster Associates, the Centre Georges Pompidou by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, and the buildings of the Japanese architects Arata Isozaki and Kisho Kurakawa. The industrial design of modern transport systems, office machines, and electrical appliances is also highlighted.

Hardcover. NY, Pointed Leaf Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The first monograph on the work of Kenneth Paul Block, one of the most influential fashion illustrators of the twentieth century. The oversize, lavishly illustrated book chronicles Block's lifetime of drawings, watercolors, and astute observations during the artist's over 30-year career at Women's Wear Daily, powerful fashion publication. A long awaited book of astonishingly vibrant fashion and portrait drawings of swan necked beauties by a much admired fashion-insider. Mr. Block studied at The Parsons school of Design and illustrated the work of the most influential fashion designers from about the mid 20th century to the nineties before unoriginal, mediocre photography (and unskilled illustrations) completely dominated how fashion was communicated to the celebrity obsessed, style challenged, uninformed masses. With seemingly effortless ease (the energy in the art looks like it could have been sketched yesterday!), Mr. Block drew the ever changing mood of fashion from London Mod to Italian Modern, Preppy Classic to Japanese Experimental, French couture to American casual and inspired many generations of fashion enthusiasts in the process. Mr. Block's portraits showcase a few of his favorite ladies. A rare and exquisite breed who set the standard for elegance and chic for most of the 20th century. Society beauties like Mrs. Guinness, Mrs. Paley, Mrs. Guest, Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Kennedy speak of a time when grace, poise and mystery mixed with a certain sense of knowing defined a chic, stylish lady. PLEASE NOTE: The book,while clean and bright, has a mild musty smell. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY due to size and weight.

Hardcover. NY, Scholastic Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 64 pages. Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father." As WWII raged, Allen was further inspired to consider questions of his own heritage and the motivations of those around him. He worked hard in rigorous drawing classes, studied, trained--and ultimately came to understand who he really is. Part memoir, part graphic novel, part narrative history, DRAWING FROM MEMORY presents a complex look at the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student. With watercolor paintings, original cartoons, vintage photographs, and maps, Allen Say has created a book that will inspire the artist in all of us.

Softcover. Japan, Nara Museum, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 116 pages. Illustrated with full color photographs. Clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Munich / London, Prestel, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 240 pages, 450 color illustrations. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. This book profiles the works of ten designers whose use of textiles, meticulous attention to material and workmanship, and interaction with other creative disciplines have created a new atmosphere of connectivitiy and engagement on the Tokyo runways.

Softcover. NY, Sotheby's, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover illustrated with color & b/w photos. Sale 5793 1,062 lots. Painting and Screens (55), Prints (223), Netsuke (89), Ojime (11), Inro (143), Sword Fittings (171), Swords (44), Armour (8). Also Ivory, Ceramics, Enamels, Metalwork, Furniture. Includes an important group of prints by Utagawa Hiroshige from The One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 232 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Color and Black and white pictures throughout. Focusing on Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating or sorrowful world"), the colourful woodblock prints that are the most popular form of Japanese art, this book introduces the little-seen collection held by the Library of Congress. This collection of prints, drawings and books, one of the largest outside Japan, has never been exhibited and has rarely been handled. The art form of Ukiyo-e first flourished in 17th-century Edo (now Tokyo), depicting landscapes, portraits of courtesans and actors. This book includes known masterpieces by such names as Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kunisada, as well as rare and unusual prints that have not been explored before, and thus serves as a survey of its subject.

Hardcover. NY, Harper Collins, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Color Illustrations by Lettimore. In a carefully researched, lavishly illustrated original tale of long ago, Deborah Nourse Lattimore transports readers back through time to a land where Shoguns rule and mythical creatures abound. Focusing on one of her favorite periods in history--Japan's Edo period--Lattimore writes of a poor birdcatcher named Hideo who is banished from his village when he is accused of being the evil bandit who steals from Shogun and villager alike. Finding shelter under the boughs of a tree, Hideo hears a rustling and makes a catch beyond his wildest dreams. Painted in the art style of the Edo period, each spread is breathtaking in its detail; every page is awash in shimmering and vibrant color.

Hardcover. London, Merrell Publishers, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 256 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. Illustrated with over 250 photographs and sketches. Future Beauty is the first comprehensive survey of Japanese avant-garde fashion of the last 30 years. Such designers as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo made an enormous impact on the world fashion scene in the late twentieth century, challenging established notions of beauty and turning fashion into art.

Hardcover. New York, Kodansha International, Reprint, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 228 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. Black & white and color photographs throughout. A tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 206 pages. Famously unabashed, W. Eugene Smith was photography's most celebrated humanist. As a photo essayist at Life magazine in the 1940s and '50s, he established himself as an intimate chronicler of human culture. His photographs of war and disaster, villages and metropolises, doctors and midwives, revolutionized the role of images in journalism, transforming photography for decades to come. When Smith died in 1978, he left behind eighteen dollars in the bank and forty-four thousand pounds of archives. He was only fifty-nine, but he was flat worn-out. His death certificate read "stroke," but, as was said of the immortal jazzman Charlie Parker, Smith died of "everything," from drug and alcohol benders to weeklong work sessions with no sleep. Lured by the intoxicating trail of people that emerged from Smith's stupefying archive, Sam Stephenson began a quest to trace his footsteps. In Gene Smith's Sink, Stephenson merges traditional biography with rhythmic digressions to revive Smith's life and legacy. Traveling across twenty-nine states, Japan, and the Pacific, Stephenson profiles a lively cast of characters, including the playwright Tennessee Williams, to whom Smith likened himself; the avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, with whom he once shared a Swiss chalet; the artist Mary Frank, who was married to his friend Robert Frank; the jazz pianists Thelonious Monk and Sonny Clark, whose music was taped by Smith in his loft; and a series of obscure caregivers who helped keep Smith on his feet. The distillation of twenty years of research, Gene Smith's Sink is an unprecedented look into the photographer's potent legacy and the subjects around him. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. US, PIE International, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers. Most of text in English and Japanese with portions in Japanese only. 256 pp. ; 200 color illustrations.

Hardcover. Portland, OR, Nazraeli Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 108 pages. This printing limited to 1000 copies. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Creasing to a few pages. An otherwise clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. In the mid-1980s, Stu Levy began making 'grid-portraits' in order to overcome his his frustration with traditional portraiture's limited point of view. These constructs of photographs, consisting of twelve to twenty-five individual images, scan the architecture and flow of time in a subject's living or working environment. The resulting portraits, usually of artists, craftspeople and musicians, are made in the subjects' studios or living spaces and serve as a backstage tour of the artist s mind and creative process. Levy is fascinated by the artifacts that fill these spaces the possessions by which the subjects are themselves possessed. Rather than confining himself to a single 'decisive' moment, Levy explore its antithesis, a maze of scrambled time. These are made with a view camera using 4 x 5-inch negatives to allow for precision of detail. The sections are printed together to form the illusion of glancing through a window at a 'snapshot' of an event, which in reality might consist of fragmentary views made months apart and in totally separate rooms or environments. Among the subjects included in this important new monograph are Dr. Stanley Burns, Linda Connor, Barbara Crane, Jay Dusard, David Hockney, Graham Nash, and Jerry Uelsmann. Beautifully printed in duotone on matt art paper and bound in black Japanese cloth, this first printing of Grid-Portraits is limited to 1,000 copies.

Hardcover. London, Gibbings and Co., 2nd Ed., 1896, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 341 pages. Hardcover with blue cloth covers with black and gilt design. An ex-library but aside from spine stickers and bookplate, a remarkably clean, tight copy. Doesn't appear to be a circulating copy. Tales of hunting throughout the world, but mostly in America, from snipe shooting to wolf coursing. Includes several fishing chapters; salmon in Japan, black and striped bass, grey mullet, brook trout and muskies, with a final chapter on artificial stocking of lakes and rivers.

Hardcover. New York, George Braziller Incorporated, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 192 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Heavy damage on 2 inches of bottom right corner. Otherwise, tight copy. Color pictures throughout. Endlessly experimenting with design, composition, and color, Hiroshige captured in these paintings, as no where else in his work, his poetic and idyllic sense of nature.

Hardcover. New York, George Braziller/ Rhode Island School of Design, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages, 91 large format color plates. Introduction by Cynthea J. Bogel, poetry translated by Alfred H. Marks.

Hardcover. New York, George Braziller Incorporated, 1st, 1986, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: Good, 256 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Color pictures throughout. landscapes. Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, actually composed of 118 splendid woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-nineteenth century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. The series contains many of Hiroshige's best-loved and most extraordinary prints. Like Venice and Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries, or Paris in the age of the Impressionists, the city of Edo, with its superb landmarks and its festive display of elegant urban life, exerts a special and compelling fascination. Hiroshige revealed the panorama of his city's activities with subtle and vivid visual anecdotes: fireworks seen from the river, fashionable geishas on parade, the kabuki district at night, intimate moments in the gardens and teahouses. It is a tour de force of artistic vision and printmaking craftsmanship. This edition has been reproduced from an exceptionally fine, first-edition set in the Brooklyn Museum of Art to insure maximum fidelity to the original prints. Henry Smith ex-plains the world of Edo in its twilight before the Meiji Restoration and the beginnings of a modern urban society. Each plate is accompanied by a commentary that discusses its artistic and cultural interest in detail. For anyone interested in Japan, the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is perhaps the finest guide and one of the greatest legacies imaginable.

Hardcover. New York, George Braziller, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Oversise hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 222 pages, 70 b&w and 41 color plates. All 89 prints by the artist collected here for the first time. This book includes the Japanese text of Oguru hyakunin isshu with Clay MacCauley"s translations & 89 of Hokusai"s plates, inspired by these poems. This was the last of Hokushai"s great print series. It has " a greater richness of colour and more wealth of detail than the prints of any other series in this large format".

Hardcover. US, Prestel Pub, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 218 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Color prints throughout. Minor wear on corners. Hokusai was one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print. His exquisite compositions and dynamic use of colour set him apart from other printmakers, and his unequalled genius influenced both Japanese and a whole generation of Western artists. This book reproduces the artist's finest works in plates that convey the full variety of his invention, each of which is provided with an informative commentary. In his introduction, Hokusai expert Matthi Forrer traces the artist's career and defines his place in relation to his contemporaries and to the history of Japanese art. Examining all genres of the artist's prolific output - including images of city life, maritime scenes, landscapes, views of Mount Fuji, bird and flower illustrations, literary scenes, waterfalls and bridges - "Hokusai: Prints and Drawings" provides a detailed account of the artist's genius.

Softcover. Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 319 pages. Softcover with paper wrappers. Tape repair on top spine. Previous owner's bokplate on inside front wrapper. Tight copy. Black and white pictures throughout.

Softcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 416 pages, illustrated throughout with 445 illustrations including 200 plates in full color. Previous owner's initials on half title page. Light shelf-wear and rubbing to dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Softcover. London, Christie's , 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 246 pages illustrated in color.

Philadelphia Museum of Art , 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, large format 12" X 12", 236 pages, illustrated i color throughout. Includes 316 illustrations, including 246 in full colour. The catalogue to accompany the exhibition held Sept. 25 to November 20, 1994 in Philadelphia. The exhibition surveyed the design history of Japan from 1950 through to the early 1990s. Clean copy.