Japan Style

Ikko Tanaka, 1978

First of all, a very heartfelt thanks to all the readers who have been moved

by our little Emma's illness to comment, write letters and make donations, 

it's incredibly comforting to receive such wonderful expressions 

of warmth and affection! Hopefully I'll manage to somehow 

thank all of you individually in the near future...

Ikko Tanaka

Those who have been following Animalarium for a while are surely

aware of my fondness of Japanese art and design. To make up for

 the deplorable absence of Japanese artworks in recent months,

I have assembled a little hors d'oeuvre of highly stylized and refined 

posters from the crème de la crème of Japanese graphic design.

Bon Appétit! 

Yusaku Kamekura award 1999-2010, thanks to Gurafiku

Ken Miki

Shigeo Fukuda

Ryohei Kojima, thanks to Grain Edit

Hisami Kunitake, from Graphis 1969-70, thanks to Sandi Vincent

Ryohei Kojima

Kazumasa Nagai, 1991, thanks to I Desire Vintage Posters

Kiyoshi Awazu, 1984

Kenya Hara, 2005

Ukichi Matsomoto, from Graphis 1967-68, 

thanks again to the very stylish Sandi Vincent

Toshihiro Watanabe

Turtle Trips

Contemporary Japanese Print Exhibition, 1970

One year ago I posted a series of prints by one of my favorite

Japanese artists and graphic designers, Kiyoshi Awazu. 

Awazu was an endlessly curious man, who in his long and
productive career explored many different subjects and genres.
In the 1970s, a period in which his style was rather psychedelic,
turtles became one of the recurrent motifs in his work.

Magazine cover, 1971

 Mano-Dharma concert poster, 1973

Mural, 1973

"Turtles were pilots of foresight and fortune tellers in ancient China 

and were geometrically similar to the Chinese octagon direction board.
This similarity in form lead to a similarity in function - the board was used 

for reading faces and for the auspicious location of houses and the turtle 

was taken as the mysterious pilot and guardian deity of the people.
There are some shrines of this sort in kyushu. The turtles that appear here 

used to live around Okinawa. The older ones have been swimming 

on the ocean bottom for two hundred years."

From Kiyoshi Awazu's website. 

Quartier Parco poster, 1973

Illustration, 1975

Spring Revolution, 1978

Poster, 1980

In the 1980s, Awazu developed a strong interest in 

the environment and state of human civilization,

which was naturally reflected in his art. 

Millions, large sea turtle bronze sculpture at Oyashirazu Pier Park, 1989

Save the Sea, 1993

Reflections on Japanese Playing Cards

Illustration, 1977

"Artists of my generation tend to try things that are beyond their genres.

 A crossbreeding of different styles results and distinctions among different art forms

 become blurred. Artists often feel that they can leap into different genres and explore

 an unknown world. If we take fine art and graphic design more openly, a theatrical space

 is also an artistic space. But in today's age of specialization, it might be only us, 

the "WWⅡ generation" who started from a wide stretch of burned ruins, 

that have this conception about artistic styles." Kiyoshi Awazu

Hokusai patterns and awazu colors, 1981

On April 29th last year, Kiyoshi Awazu died of pneumonia in Kawasaki, Japan 

at the age of 80. A self taught painter and graphic designer, Awazu was a man full 

of curiosity and imagination. Born in Tokyo, he started working at 12, and soon 

became interested in Christianity, philosophy, communism and western cinema. 

At 18 he started to teach himself drawing by copying from old art magazines and sketching

 fellow commuters on the train to work. At 21 he started working in the animation field 

making rough sketches, and at 25 had his first opportunity to design a poster,

 commissioned by a theater group. He went on to become a famous multifaceted 

graphic designer and artist involved in book design, illustration, printmaking, painting,

 sculpture, exhibition and urban design, playwriting, film production and art direction.

Awazu also wrote extensively on design and fine art. In 1981 he was the art director 

of the fantastic "Great Japan Exhibition" at The Royal Academy of Arts in London. 

In the same year he held the "Kiyoshi Awazu One Man Show-Printed Works" at 

50 Earlham St. Gallery in London, and produced a series of 12 wood cut prints inspired 

by traditional art forms titled "Reflections on Japanese Playing Cards". 

All the information and card pictures come from the well designed and extensive 

Kiyoshi Awazu website, where you can learn and see a lot more of this wonderful artist.

January

February

June

July

October

November

And if you haven't seen them already, check out the posts featuring Awazu's more 

wildly experimental artworks at A Journey Round my Skull's and But it Does Float.