The Art of Japanese Craft: 1875 to the Present

From Japan’s first forays onto the international stage of world’s fairs in the late nineteenth century to the dynamic creativity of the 1920s and 1930s, and from the heady post–World War II period to the present day, Japanese craft art has exhibited a rich diversity of mediums and techniques. One of the first illustrated surveys in English of modern-era Japanese crafts—including ceramics, lacquerware, metalcraft, and wood—this elegant book is an invaluable guide for the collector and scholar. Focusing on an important collection of Japanese crafts being given to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the text discusses the artists and ideas that shaped and defined the aesthetic of twentieth-century Japan, noting that this nation—which deeply appreciates and fosters its craft traditions—hails its artists as “living national treasures.” The book also includes artists’ biographies and reproductions of their signatures and marks.