Calendar 1970

Tokyo, 1969. First Edition. Stiff Folder. Near Fine. 39 by 29.5 cm folder, with 12 brightly colored monthly plates, 37 by 29 cm. Serizawa (1895-1984) was a much celebrated and decorated fabric and textile designer. In 1956 he was proclaimed by the Emperor "Holder of an Important Intangible Cultural Property", a title known outside Japan as a "Human National Treasure" of Japan. And in 1976 he was appointed Member of the Order of Cultural Merit. He began issuing calendars, each different from the prior ones, in 1946, and continued to do them until his death. The artwork and appearance of the calendars is highly distinctive, with their dazzling colors, their brash, broad-brush typography, their bold, whimsical, folk art-inspired and often playful imagery arranged idiosyncratically. Serizawa was applying his artistic sensibility and technique from textile work onto paper, and the result is unlike virtually anything else one is likely to have ever viewed. Serizawa's technique, known as "Kataezome", was a traditional one that had fallen into disuse. Basically it involved stencils combined with dye-resistent paste. Serizawa also relied on vegetable colors. In reviving Kataezome, Serizawa involved himself in every step of the process. The results bear some kinship to colorful Japanese toy catalogues, but these calendars have an explosion of color and collage-like composition that easily sets them apart from these catalogues all the same. The artwork here proclaims a freedom in so many ways, and yet they are clearly painstaking in their technique and are all of a piece and relate well to one another. Light and smallish dampstain on lower edge of folder front cover. Minor creasing to plates along edges here and there.