Transmitted from China to Japan in the 13th century, Zen Buddhism not only introduced religious practices but also literature, calligraphy, philosophy, and ink painting to Japanese disciples. This elegant book discusses these fields as they combined to encompass the evocative practice of figure painting within Zen Buddhism in medieval Japan.Focusing on forty-seven exceptional Japanese and Chinese paintings from the 12th to the 16th centuries--which together illustrate the story of the awakening of Zen art--the book features essays by distinguished scholars that discuss the life and art within Zen monastic and lay communities. The authors explore the ideology underlying the development of Zens own pantheon of characters created to imagine the Buddhas wisdom and offer fresh insights into the role of the visual arts within Zen practice as it developed in Japan in close dialogue with the Asian continent.

Awakenings: Zen Figure Painting in Medieval Japan

Lippit, Yukio

Levine, Gregory

History

Japan Society

Since the 1950s, many Japanese artists have made their homes and careers in New York––some for enhanced exposure to the international art world or to challenge themselves to take their artwork in new directions, and others to escape restrictions faced in their native country. This fascinating book presents work by 33 important New York–based Japanese artists, ranging from young, emerging talent such as Misaki Kawai and Hiroki Otsuka to established luminaries such as Yoko Ono and Ushio Shinohara. These diverse artists work in a variety of media––including video, painting, fashion, architecture, sculpture, performance, drawing, photography, and sound.
Making a Home features a portfolio selection of the images, and essays situate the artists and their work within the broader themes that predominate Asian and international contemporary art. With a biography and bibliography on each artist––as well as a critical biography of Yayoi Kusama that reexamines her early years in New York––this handsome book also explores Japan Society’s pivotal role in supporting the careers of contemporary Japanese artists in New York.

Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York

Arts & Photography

Tomii, Reiko

Shiner, Eric C.

History & Criticism

While woven bamboo containers have been common in Asia for thousands of years, it is only in the past 150 years that basketry has become widely regarded as an art form. This stunning book celebrates contemporary Japanese bamboo masters whose breathtakingly beautiful and imaginative new works are changing the definition of basketry.
Focusing on contemporary bamboo artists working in sculptural forms, the book is based on recent interviews and critical analysis. In his compelling and accessible text, Joe Earle argues that today’s bamboo sculpture reaches beyond its craft roots to abandon functionality, while maintaining meticulous attention to the rigorous technical skill on which Japanese basketry was founded. Poised between traditional and contemporary art and drawing inspiration from both, Japanese bamboo art sheds new light on the complex relationship between past and present cultures.

New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters

Earle, Joe

Tin toys have been made in Japan for more than 100 years, but during World War II their production―and international sales―ended. Almost as soon as the war was over, ingenious manufacturers began to make model Jeeps out of recycled food cans. With the resumption of international trade in 1948, exports of more sophisticated metal toys soared. At the same time, the postwar boom in the United States led to an increasingly automobile-based society―the perfect inspiration for Japan’s gifted toy designers. As leading marques competed to market ever more seductively styled autos to U.S. consumers, Japanese toy manufacturers followed styling trends closely, retooling often to create miniature versions of the latest models; airplanes, spaceships, and other vehicles were also popular.
The Tanaka collection is a treasure-trove of more than 500 immaculate model vehicles, enthusiastically collected over the last 50 years. Buriki offers a lively tour of its highlights, evoking the heady, expansive spirit of the 1950s in both the U.S. and Japan. Its 60 cars, along with prime examples of other modes of transportation, will delight young and old with the quality of their detailing and bright color schemes.

Buriki: Japanese Tin Toys from the Golden Age of the American Automobile: The Yoku Tanaka Collection

This book documents and exhibition of contemporary Japanese artists who are active at the cutting edge of the global fiber-art movement, transforming fabrics into sculptures, pictures, emulations of nature, or even abstract meditations on memory and identity. The materials they use range from silk, cotton, recycled cocoons, antique paper scraps, jute, and hemp to stainless-steel wire and synthetic fiber. Their methods are sometimes traditional, but can also incorporate the latest weaving and dyeing technology, often with the goal of expressing an environmentally conscious green ethic. The thirty artists, including both established figures and newcomers, were selected for Fiber Futures: Japan's Textile Pioneers, an exhibition at New York's Japan Society Gallery. Introductory essays by Hiroko Watanabe, President of International Textile Network, and Gallery Director Joe Earle provide the context for these innovative, beautiful, and sometimes challenging works of art. The catalogue section features artist statements, informative commentary, and lavish photography, much of it commissioned especially by Japan Society. Originally conceived in 2007, Fiber Futures came to fruition after the devastating natural disasters that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, events which give the exhibition and its catalogue added significance. Fiber Futures not only reflects the fecundity of Japanese artistic tradition, but also speaks to the resilience and ingenuity of the Japanese people and their ability to repurpose the past in order to better shape the future.

Fiber Futures: Japan's Textile Pioneers

Watanabe, Hiroko

Sakai Hōitsu was one of the most prominent painters of late 18th- and early 19th-century Japan, known for technical bravura, arresting compositions, and striking use of color. After becoming a Buddhist monk, Hōitsu was able to dedicate himself to painting, establishing a studio and studying the work of Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716). Hōitsu successfully revived the earlier artist's style, which later came to be known as Rimpa, "the school of Kōrin."
The first book in English to focus exclusively on the work of this important artist, Silver Wind examines fifty-eight of Hōitsu's works and those of his predecessors and artistic heirs, ranging from scrolls and screens to fans, lacquer, and woodblock-printed books. Accompanying essays explore Hōitsu's discovery and reinterpretation of Kōrin's artistic legacy; the aesthetics of the Rimpa style; and the career of Suzuki Kiitsu, his leading student.

Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828)

McKelway, Matthew

Contemporary artist Mariko Mori (b. 1967) has transformed herself many times since her memorable debut onto the international art scene in the mid-1990s. Over the past two decades, Mori has made a significant shift in the focus of her work, moving away from self-obsessive motifs and performance pieces to a diametrically opposite approach of self-effacement. Her own image has disappeared from her Pop-oriented work, and her interest now inclines toward the prehistoric world in which everything existed in an amorphous state without text, religion, nation, or division between humankind and nature. Accompanying a major solo exhibition at Japan Society Gallery in New York, this fascinating book features over 35 immersive installations, sculptures, drawings (including many unpublished works), and videos produced by the artist between 2003 and 2012. It presents not only Mori’s artistic evolution during the last decade, but also defines her current work relating to rebirth in an age of endangered environment and a lost connection between man and nature.

Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori

Individual Artists

Catalog of the first exhibition of classic Japanese sculpture to tour the United States. The period represented, the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, was the definitive age in the history of this art form, encompassing its introduction from Korea, its assimilation, flourishing, and decline. The fifty-two pieces included in the show were drawn from active temples and major museum collections.

The great age of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, AD 600-1300

Nishikawa, Kyōtarō

Asia

LIKE NEW -- this book is clean and bright, with no creases, no tears, and no markings.

Ikeda & Ida: Two new Japanese printmakers

Castile, Rand

Nippon-To Art Swords of Japan: The Walter A. Compton Collection

Compton, Walter Ames

Japan House Gallery

Japan Society (New York, N.Y.)

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Books by Japan Society