Sugiura Hisui – Epoch-making Modern Design
Sugiura Hisui: Epoch-making Modern Design, a nicely-produced exhibition catalog curated by Nakamura Reiko and Yamada Ayumi / 295-page hardcover, 7.75 x 10.38 inches / text in Japanese with short sections and titles in English; illustrated throughout. Edited by The Museum of Art, Ehime and Mainichi Newspapers.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this designer is responsible for a lot of the work in my 50 Watts series of vintage book covers (for instance, this post).
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From wikipedia:
Hisui Sugiura (杉浦 非水, Sugiura Hisui, May 15, 1876 – August 18, 1965) was a Japanese graphic designer who was a pioneer of modern Japanese graphic design.
…He went to Europe to study modern graphic design from 1922 to 1924. Having returned to Japan, he formed “Hichininsha,” a group to study posters, in 1925. He designed the poster of the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line opening to traffic in 1927. It can be said that his works during this period led the early stages of Japanese commercial design.
He became design department chief of Imperial School of Fine Arts (present Musashino Art University) in 1929. He is one of the founders of the Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakko (present Tama Art University) in 1935.
