How-to & Graphics
Traditional Japanese packaging is an art form that applies sophisticated design and natural aesthetics to simple objects. In this elegant presentation of the baskets, boxes, wrappers, and containers that were used in ordinary, day-to-day life, we are offered a stunning example of a time before mass production. Largely constructed of bamboo, rice straw, hemp twine, paper, and leaves, all of the objects shown here are made from natural materials. Through 221 black-and-white photographs of authentic examples of traditional Japanese packaging—with commentary on the origins, materials, and use of each piece—the items here offer a look into a lost art, while also reminding us of the connection to nature and the human imprint of handwork that was once so alive and vibrant in our everyday lives.
First Edition for the United States published by Harper and Row in 1967, after the original Japanese edition of 1965. Written by Hide Yuki Oka, foreword by George Nelson, photography by Michikazu Sakai. Traditional elegant designs for packaging ordinary objects in Japan reflect their time and culture. 4to, 203 pages, full page illustrations in exquisite black and white, dust jacket with protective cover, glossy white with blind embossing on front hardcover, bump to right lower edge, interior fine. VG/VG.
Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was an English/American artist, writer, and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings. During the late 1920's and 1930's, Clare Leighton visited the United States on a number of lecture tours. In 1939, at the conclusion of a lengthy relationship with the radical journalist Henry Brailsford, she emigrated to the US and became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Over the course of a long and prolific career, she wrote and illustrated numerous books praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land. During the 1920's and 1930's, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial, and urban, Leighton portrayed rural working men and women. In the 1950's she created designs for Steuben Glass, Wedgwood plates, several stained glass windows for churches in New England and for the windows of Worcester Cathedral, Massachussetts.
Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts, published in 1932, is the second book in the "How to do it" Series. The book features tipped-in photos of Leighton demonstrating wood engraving techniques, along with stunning full-page illustrations of her own work, as well as examples from fellow engravers, such as Eric Gill, Gwendolen Raverat, Blair Hughes-Stanton, and Agnes Miller Parker, among others.
London: The Studio Ltd.; New York: The Studio Publications Inc., 1932; 1st edition. No dust jacket; black and cream patterned paper covered boards with black cloth over the spine; corners bumped; spine creased, top of spine pulled but not torn; smudges on front cover; endpapers tanned and lightly foxed; hinges weak; all tipped-in photos intact; text clean. G