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  1. Genji: The Prince and the Parodies

    by Sarah E. Thompson ISBN 9780878468836, 0878468838 Hardcover | 192 pages 200 Illustration(s) 11 in H | 10 in W How artists have interpreted the intrigues and love stories of The Tale of Genji, one of the world’s oldest novels Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji has delighted readers for more than 1,000 years and inspired writers to create numerous parodies. Artists have responded with a rich parallel tradition illustrating the courtly intrigues, love affairs and shifting alliances of the epic novel, as well as its retellings. This lavishly illustrated volume explores interpretations of the original story and its spinoffs by Japanese master printmakers such as Kunisada, as well as Hiroshige, Suzuki Harunobu and Chobunsai Eishi, bringing the characters to life in dazzling woodblock prints from the peerless collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. With insightful commentary from a leading Japanese print scholar, this book invites readers to explore the colorful world of The Tale of Genji and its visual afterlife.

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    $45.00
  2. Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

    by Grace Wales Bonner, Michelle Kuo ISBN 9781633451582, 1633451585 Hardcover | 184 pages A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm—Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner—Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs. Grace Wales Bonner (born 1990) is the founder and artistic director of Wales Bonner. While she sees herself primarily as a researcher, her practice extends to curation, filmmaking and publishing. In 2019 she curated her first institutional exhibition, A Time for New Dreams, at the Serpentine Gallery, London. She has received numerous awards, including the LVMH Young Designer Prize (2016) and the CFDA International Men’s Designer of the Year (2021). She has also collaborated with brands including Adidas and Dior.

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    $65.00
  3. Haiku

    by Peter Washington ISBN 9781400041282, 1400041287 Hardcover | 256 pages 6.5 in H | 4.4 in W | 0.7 in T Simple yet capable of great complexity, the haiku is a tightly structured verse form that has a remarkable power to distill the essence of a moment keenly perceived. For centuries confined to a small literary elite in Japan, the writing of haiku is now practiced all over the world by those who are fascinated by its combination of technical challenge, expressive means, and extreme concentration. This anthology brings together hundreds of haiku by the Japanese masters–Basho, Issa, Buson, Shiki–with superb examples from nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers. The pioneering translator R. H. Blyth believed that the spirit of haiku is present in all great poetry; inspired by him, the editor of this volume has included lines from such poets as Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Thoreau, and Hopkins, presented here in haiku form. Following them are haiku and haiku-influenced poems of the twentieth century–from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” to William Carlos Williams’s “Prelude to Winter,” and from the irreverence of Jack Kerouac to the lyricism of Langston Hughes. The result is a collection as compact, dynamic, and scintillating as the form itself.

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    $18.00
  4. Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry

    Hardcover Smyth-sewn book, with jacket 80 pages with 35 color reproductions Written by Judith Patt, Michiko Warkentyne, and Barry Till Size: 8 x 8 in. ISBN 9780764956102 The strictest and purest of poetic forms, the Japanese haiku contains in its 17 sound characters a reference to a season as well as a distinct pause or interruption. Cherry blossoms and swallows might refer to spring; red maple leaves and deer usually imply autumn. These seasonal allusions emphasize the essence of haiku: nature and its ephemeral beauty. The graceful, evocative haiku featured here were composed by the renowned Japanese haiku masters of the past 400 years, including Matsuo Bashō, Taniguchi Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. The deceptively simple poems—rendered in English with Japanese calligraphies and transliterations—are paired with exquisite 18th- or 19th-century paintings and ukiyo-e prints, and 20th-century shin hanga woodcuts. With their depth and delicacy, wide range of subtle hues, and time-honored focus on landscapes, birds, and flowers, these artworks—like their haiku counterparts—quietly capture a moment in time. Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry presents 35 pairs of poems and images, organized seasonally. The Introduction details the origin and development of haiku, the lives of the most famous poets, and the obstacles faced when translating the concise yet complex lines.

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    $24.95
  5. Hiroshige - One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

    by Lorenz Bichler, trede ISBN 9783836556590, 3836556596 Hardcover | 584 pages 8.1 in H | 6 in W | 1.7 in T A dazzling reprint of Hiroshige's views of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), one of the masterpieces of the ukiyo-e woodblock tradition and a paradigm of the Japonisme that inspired Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau artists, from Vincent van Gogh to James McNeill Whistler. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and came to characterize the Western world’s visual idea of Japan. In many ways images of hedonism, ukiyo-e scenes often represented the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo): beautiful women, actors and wrestlers, city life, and spectacular landscapes. Though he captured a variety of subjects, Hiroshige was most famous for landscapes, with a final masterpiece series known as “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” (1856–1858), which depicted various scenes of the city through the seasons, from bustling shopping streets to splendid cherry orchards. This reprint is made from one of the finest complete original sets of woodblock prints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo. It pairs each of the 120 illustrations with a description, allowing readers to immerse themselves in these beautiful, vibrant vistas that became paradigms of Japonisme and inspired Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Art Nouveau artists alike, from Vincent van Gogh to James McNeill Whistler.

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    $25.00
  6. Hokusai's Fuji

    by Katsushika Hokusai, Kyoko Wada ISBN 9780500026557, 0500026556 Hardcover | 416 pages 265 illustrations / 96 in color 8.4 in H | 5.9 in W | 1.6 in T A wonderfully illustrated exploration of one of Hokusai’s key motifs: Mount Fuji. Katsushika Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and the three volumes of his subsequent One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji show his fascination with a single motif: Mount Fuji. Hokusai’s near-obsession with Fuji was part of his hankering after artistic immortality. In Buddhist and Daoist tradition, this mountain was thought to hold the secret to eternal life, as one popular interpretation of its name suggests: fu-shi (“not death”). Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji was produced from 1830 to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career. Among the prints are three of the artist’s most famous: The Great Wave of Kanagawa; Fine Wind, Clear Morning; and Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit. By the time he created his second great tribute to Mount Fuji, three volumes comprising One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, he was using the artist names “Gakyo Rojin” (“old man crazy for painting”) and “Manji” (“ten thousand things” or “everything”). Contrasting the mountain’s steadfastness and solidity with the changing world around it, Hokusai depicts Fuji through different seasons, weather conditions, and settings, and in so doing communicates an important message: while life changes, Fuji stands still. Including all illustrations from these two masterful series, Hokusai’s Fuji also features many of Hokusai’s earlier renditions of the mountain, as well as later paintings. In this way, through Mount Fuji, this volume traces a history of Hokusai’s oeuvre.

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    $35.00
  7. Hokusai: The Master's Legacy

    by Rossella Menegazzo ISBN 9788857236940, 8857236943 Trade Paperback | 352 pages 220 Illustration(s) 11.9 in H | 9.5 in W | 1.4 in T The legacy of the undisputed master of Ukiyo-e, from his artistic evolutions to the influence on and of his followers The undisputed master of ukiyo-e, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is celebrated not only for his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji but also for his great versatility expressed in his treatment of all types of subjects: from landscapes to nature, portraits of kabuki actors, beautiful women, warriors and even ghosts and spirits, semilegendary beings and animals. Hokusai is also associated with restless change: of residence, of name (more than 30!) and of style. He had dozens of followers, and each of them represents an aspect of the master’s vast oeuvre. These include Shinsai, Hokkei and Gakutei, who in turn influenced the following generation of artists. Through a selection of over 250 works from the Municipal Museum of Chiba and other Japanese collections, this publication offers a reading of Hokusai that also includes his legacy, accompanying and comparing his output with that of others who followed in his footsteps and gave life to new lines, forms and balances of color within the classic themes of ukiyo-e.

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    $55.00
  8. Hokusai’s Landscapes: The Complete Series

    by Hokusai, Sarah Thompson ISBN 9780878468669, 0878468668 Hardcover | 224 pages 150 Illustration(s) 11.3 in H | 10.3 in W | 1.1 in T The first book to focus exclusively on Hokusai’s landscapes, by one of the world’s leading ukiyo-e specialists The best known of all Japanese artists, Katsushika Hokusai was active as a painter, book illustrator and print designer throughout his 90-year lifespan. Yet his most famous works—the color woodblock landscape prints issued in series—were produced within a relatively short time, in an amazing burst of creative energy that lasted from about 1830 to 1836. Hokusai’s landscapes revolutionized Japanese printmaking and became icons of world art within a few decades of the artist’s death. Hokusai’s Landscapes focuses exclusively on this pivotal body of the artist’s work, the first book to do so. Featuring stunning color reproductions of works from the incomparable Japanese art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (the largest collection of Japanese prints outside Japan), Hokusai’s Landscapes examines the magnetic appeal of Hokusai’s designs and the circumstances of their creation. The book includes all published prints of the artist’s eight major landscape series: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (1830–32), A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (1833–34), Snow, Moon and Flowers (1833), Eight Views of the Ryukyu Islands (1832–33), One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean (1832–33), Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces (1834), A True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poetry (1833) and One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (1835). Working prolifically in the years just before Japan opened to the West in 1853, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was the first Japanese artist to be internationally recognized. His cleverly composed ukiyo-e prints of everyday life and the landscapes of Edo Japan arrived in a 19th-century Europe gripped by Japonisme-mania, where they influenced artists such as Degas, Gauguin, Manet and Van Gogh.

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    $45.00
  9. Jamel Shabazz: Albums

    by Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., Michal Raz-Russo, Deborah Willis, Leslie Wilson, Nelson George ISBN 9783969990957, 3969990955 Hardcover | 240 pages 11.7 in H | 8.2 in W | 1 in T Photo albums from the archives of the iconic chronicler of New York's 1980s rap, hip-hop and Black culture The influential Brooklyn-based photographer Jamel Shabazz has been making portraits of New Yorkers for more than 40 years, creating an archive of cultural shifts and struggles across the city. His portraits of different communities underscore the street as a space for self-presentation, whether through fashion or pose. In every instance Shabazz aims, in his words, to represent individuals and communities with “honor and dignity.” This book—awarded the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize—presents, for the first time, Shabazz’s work from the 1970s to ’90s as it exists in his archive: small prints thematically grouped and sequenced in traditional family photo albums that function as portable portfolios. Shabazz began making portraits in the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, Queens, the West Village and Harlem. His camera was also at his side while working as an officer at Rikers Island in the 1980s, where he took portraits of inmates. This book features selections from over a dozen albums, many previously unseen, and includes his earliest photographs as well as images taken inside Rikers Island, all accompanied by essays that situate Shabazz’s work within the broader history of photography. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz (born 1960) picked up his first camera at the age of 15 and began documenting his communities, inspired by photographers such as Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee and Gordon Parks. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including those at the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Shabazz is the author of Back in the Days (2001) and Sights in the City (2017).

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    $50.00

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