Some favourite subjects:
Some favourite subjects:
Hikifuda. ... ... [Takahashiya ... Taromaru ...]. n.p. [c1910?]. 26x38cm colour woodcut. Margins browned. Au$125
I don't know what Takahashiya sold, I'm sorry, but I can tell you that Taromaru is in Toyama and that this patriotic hikifuda celebrates the royal family who in turn celebrate Japan taking to the air. That's the crown prince, soon to be emperor Taisho and some family: wife and presumably his oldest child, Hirohito.
These hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce.
Hikifuda - fashion. . A small hikifuda - handbill - advertising fashion from Kawaki Shoten in Ogawamachi in Tokyo. Tokyo [c1910?]. Colour lithograph broadsheet 18x19cm. Illustration on one side, text in blue on the other. An old crease. Au$65
Small but chic. Is the young dandy wanting the stylish but undeniably bourgeois family to move on or is that merely a dandy's customary expression of disdain?
Fire safety poster. : [Kasai Yobo De : Hinoyojin]. Kyotofu Shobosho [191-?] Colour lithograph poster 53x38cm mounted on canvas a little larger. A couple of closed tears. Au$750
An almost celebratory poster for Fire Prevention Day in Kyoto with more than a touch of circus poster about it.
Hikifuda. ... [Gakuyohin ...]. np [191-?]. Colour lithograph 26x38cm. A nice copy. Au$135
Presumably this hallucinatory hikifuda dates from around the first world war. At first I feared that the 'clay' of 'clay pigeons' had been lost in translation but these dopey looking young soldiers are concentrating rather than thick or stoned. The young men and animals of Japan are prepared.
Hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce. Here, I believe, the products on offer are school supplies.
Hikifuda. - [Rokujinmaru aputo - Toyama Seizai Kabushikigaisha]. Toyama Pharmaceutical [191-?]. Three lithographs 39x18cm each. Au$300
A trio of carols to modernity, the future and whatever it is that Rokujinmaru does. Some sort of herbal medicine, presumably it makes children joyous, smart and eager to speed into the future.
Teruha toiletry poster. [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 jokai, tengu, spirit or minor god here, but for that suit.
Specimen Hikifuda. Hikifuda of lucky gods driving a motor car. n.p. [1911]. Colour lithograph and woodcut 52x38cm. Stab holes in the margin show it was once in an album. Horizontal fold; quite good. The picture is lithographed, the calendar woodcut. Au$200
An extra psychedelic extravaganza in experimental colour showing lucky god Ebisu being chauffered by Daikokuten. These two did embrace modernity and had very good tailors as can be seen when the occasion demanded a smart suit or an even more smart uniform. Here they haven't dressed; it's just two friends on an outing. Maybe a joyride. I wonder whether it was good luck to have these two snaffle your car.
These hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. The handy calendar is for 1912.
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 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.
Specimen hikifuda. Large hikifuda of a boy flying his mother in a monoplane. n.p.n.d. (1914). Colour lithograph 53x38cm. Stab holes in the top margin, catalogue number on the back, showing it was once in a specimen book. Folded rather than creased. Au$200
That woman and child are modelled on the crown princess and her first son - Hirohito - as they were a few years before. She is adventurous enough to go skylarking but still the boy must drive. Around and below are most of the things that make Japan Japan - cherry blossoms, industry and Fuji.
Hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce. This one is double the standard size; the timetable or calendar is for 1915.
Specimen hikifuda. Hikifuda of a woman driving a motor car. n.p. [1914]. Colour woodcut 52x38cm. Stab holes in the margin showing it was once in an album; a little browned and minor signs of use. Rather good. Au$500
An shockingly early picture of a Japanese woman driving a car. 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 handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. The handy calendar is for 1915.
[Tojimari Sen Kanagu : Bunka Kuroro]. [192-?]. Colour lithograph poster 76x35cm. Short tears around the edges; pretty good. Au$200
This shop poster is both an advertisement and a warning: these handsome door or window locks will not keep out mournful children.
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.
Pesticide manga. [Fumakilla Manga]. Fumakilla [192-?]. 10x7cm folding out to 8 panels: ie 16pp printed in red and blue. Au$100
Tiny maybe but when did you last have so much fun squirting bug killer over your family, pets, livestock and plants? Fumakilla was patented in 1924 and Fumakilla, the company, still exists but I suppose the delivery method is obsolete.
HIGHAM, Charles Frederick. Looking Forward. Mass education through publicity. London, Nisbet 1920. Octavo; [10],183pp. Some browning or spotting towards each end. A fetching copy in a luxurious Zaehnsdorf binding of green straight grain calf, spine elaborately gilt with red labels and small red onlays in each panel. Au$350
Higham's own copy, specially bound for him. I wasn't certain of this until recently when I came across another of his books in an identical binding. A pioneering bit of brave new world stuff; frightening for the enthusiasm with which governments have embraced Higham's messages of advertising for political purpose - the common good. The possibilities Higham outlines for the cinema are now more fully realised with television and some of his proposals now seem naive (as do the possibly disingenuous declarations of trustworthy government) but the embryo of current thought is well formed here and was being developed speedily - passages from this book are in the papers of General Ffoulkes, copied while he was Director of Irish Propaganda during the Anglo-Irish war of 1921.
Advertising - Lotus Margarine. Lotus Margarine. Fine de Table. Recettes de Cuisine. Lotus [192-?]. 21x11cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 32pp, b/w illustrations and decorations throughout. Cover (and inside?) by Duzolle. Au$85
A nifty little booklet, packed with style and cordon bleu recipes.
Sugoroku. [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.
Shop architecture. [Shoten Kenchiku Oyobi Tento Keikaku Zuan]. Tokyo, Kenchikushoin 1924 (Taisho 13). Oblong folio, 26x39cm publisher's decorated cloth (a couple of nibbles) and mildly battered printed card case; [10]pp, 50 b/w plates, [4]pp. A nice copy. Au$1350
Modern and moderne shop buildings and store fronts; essential if you want to rebuild Tokyo after the earthquake and before the fire bombing. This is, of course, part of the post earthquake reconstruction effort: the results of a competition held by the equivalent of the Tokyo chamber of commerce. The plates, elevations and floor plans, are reproduced from measured drawings and look ready to build but I wonder about one (by Shibahara Niro) which, the facade at least, seems to be taken straight from Bruno Taut's crystal alpine architecture. The requirements: frontage, height etc, are spelt out in the introduction and I presume fit an average commercial lot. At the end are designs for shop fronts.
FLADER, Louis [ed]. Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter Press Printing, 1927. Chicago, American Photo-Engravers Association 1927. Thick quarto moulded mock leather; hundreds of plates in colour and black and white, some embossed, on a variety of papers. Signs of use but nothing drastic. Au$350
American commercial printing and graphic art at its peak; a self composed hymn to photo-engraving, which gave birth to advertising art according to the prefatory note. And much like virgin mothers, photo-engraving was soon to be ancient history.
Catalogue - musical instruments. Beare & Son. London. Beare & Son 1927 Nett Wholesale Export Catalogue. London, Beare 1927. Quarto old binders cloth (rubbed); 162pp, illustrated throughout including 10 colour plates of violins. Library marks inside front cover, used but solid and decent. Au$200
Beare & Son still exist as dealers in stringed instruments but in their heyday - like 1927 - they flooded the dominions with low to medium price instruments of every kind. Many were made for Beare under various house brands or their own, so for those wondering about that ancient Francois Barzoni violin this catalogue will tell you that it was made for Beare by some anonymous maker in the 1920s. Their range covers accordeons to zither banjos, fittings and accessories and includes quite a few jazz instruments.
[Catalogue - Engraved stamps]. J. Augey, Saint-Claude. 1928. Maison Speciale pour tous Articles Graves. The company 1928. Octavo printed wrapper; 64pp, numerous illustrations. Au$90
An appealing catalogue of engraved metal, wood and rubber stamps - going well beyond mere date stamps (though many of these are quite handsome): trade marks, facsimile signatures and so on. As well are engraved and enamelled plaques and plaques for tombs with permanent photographs incorporated.
Smoca advertising. Kataoka Toshiro etc. [Smoca Kokoku Sakuhinshu]. Tokyo, Seishindoshoten 1928 (Showa 3). 22x15cm publisher's printed wrapper; [2],213pp, profusely illustrated throughout in b/w (a few folding). Signs of use and some browning; a pretty good copy. Au$400
The first and hardest to find of Smoca's compilations of their advertising, six more followed over the next thirteen years. Smoca's success - they are still going - was through clever advertising. From the start, in 1925, the company's founder, advertising man Kataoka Toshiro, hired the best artists and cartoonists.
Smoca, in case you wondered, was then a tooth powder for smokers.
Yokohama Temperance Association. [Kinshu Karenda]. 1929. Yokohama Kinshukai 1928. 38x17cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper with (crooked) metal strip along the top; 12 leaves printed on one side, each with a color illustration and advertisement. Au$100
This is the reason why someone with even my momentary attention span can remain fascinated with Japan in the late 19th and early 20th century. There is always something I never imagined might exist. Here we have the 1929 Temperance Calendar from the Yokohama Temperance Association. If there are any for other years or from other local associations I haven't find them yet.
The temperance movement arrived in Japan with American Christians, of course, and blossomed despite some anti-Christian schisms early in the 20th century. They never achieved prohibition but did get the still current under age law passed in 1922, setting the legal drinking age at 20.
One of the leaders of the early temperance movement was Ando Taro, former Consul General in Hawaii. He, on his own account, had been a heavy drinker from his early teens until his wife put an end to his drinking in Honolulu. Seems to me that despite being on the wrong side in the Boshin War and a year in prison, becoming Consul General in Honolulu before the age of 40 shows that the boozing was, at least, not so harmful, maybe beneficial.
Hamada Masuji, Sugiura Hisui and others. [Gendai Shogyo Bijutsu Zenshu - The Complete Commercial Artist]. Tokyo, Ars 1928-30 (Showa 3 - 5). 24 volumes quarto, publisher's cloth or wrappers, printed card slipcases for a few wrappered volumes; thousands of illustrations, most colour. A used but solid mixed set, most of the wrappered volumes have chipped spines; the cloth volumes dulled and rubbed - but they are never pretty anyway. Inside all quite good. Au$2500
A complete set of the Shogyo Bijutsu, one of the great monuments of Japanese modernism. Largely the work of Hamada Masuji - credited with the invention of design as a profession in Japan - it is an encyclopaedic gathering of all that is new and exciting in Russia, Europe, Britain and America from art nouveau to bauhaus and constructivism, with futurism, expressionism, dada and everything else along the way lavishly mixed with Japanese responses to, and digestion of, these western ideas. Any number of exciting artists and designers contributed.
Each volume is devoted to a topic or related topics and commercial design here means more than it does to us. So as well as volumes on posters, advertisements, billboards, typography, and similar graphic arts (like bookbindings, magazine, brochure and catalogue covers, packaging, labels, trademarks and placards), there are volumes devoted to the architecture of the shop from the mightiest department store to the most chic Parisian shop window and the display within. Exterior and interior design, showcases and fittings - shops, restaurants, cinemas, even a barber shop or beauty parlour is laid out. One volume is devoted to lighting: neon lights, the lighting of commercial spaces and illuminated signs. Another volume is devoted to kiosks, pavilions and floats, festive decoration, facades, gateways and entrances, while the following volume continues into international exhibitions. Volume 22 is devoted to traditional Japanese shop signs and banners, a treat in itself, while volume 14 explores photography and humour in graphic art - so German photo-montage and French caricature share a volume.
*Rather than do any work I've re-used old photos of the contents of these. The outside picture is new, the inside not so much.
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