Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is the first comprehensive presentation of modern design in Japan; this elegant survey documents a unique interpretation of the forms and aesthetics of products made for everyday use. This book examines the work of designers who have boldly challenged their Western counterparts in terms of adventurousness and originality.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This first comprehensive presentation of modern design in Japan provides extraordinary documentation of the forms and aesthetics of products made for everyday use. Encompassing the fields of furniture, fashion, textile design, housewares, consumer electronics, graphics, and crafts, this book explores the development of more than 250 objects and the quality that makes them uniquely Japanese. Published in conjunction with an exhibition in 1994 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this book is a richly rewarding experience to read and behold. Its impeccably researched text is accompanied by beautifully reproduced plates of a wide variety of products. The extensive bibliography contains valuable information on designers and makers, including interesting insights on a number of popular companies. For example, Canon is anglicized "Kwanon," which is Japanese for export; the Sharp Corporation derives its name from one of its earliest products, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil. Without question, this volume will make an outstanding addition to any library. General; lower-division undergraduate and up. J. Mendenhall; California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Booklist Review

Visual arts have always been an intrinsic element of Japanese culture, but the postwar years brought as many changes to the realm of art as they did to every other aspect of life in Japan. These two beautifully produced, unprecedented volumes survey the last 50 years of Japanese art and design. Curators Hiesinger and Fischer have selected nearly 300 objects, almost all reproduced in color, to represent the evolution of Japanese design over the course of the last five supercharged decades. They introduce this stunning collection with a series of bright, critical, and informative essays about Japan's tradition of superb design and ready assimilation of styles and production methods from other cultures, especially the West. The tremendous leap from the cheap "Made in Japan" era to today's superior decorative arts and electronics is succinctly explained, as is the rise of design as a profession. Even though the authors include company histories of Honda, Kenmochi Design, Sony, and Nippon Design and discuss such issues as design and marketing, their emphasis is on the development of Japan's distinctive visual lexicon. The objects shown include everything from calculators to teapots, furniture, textiles and kimonos, graphics, and packaging.As enticing and polished as the objects are in Japanese Design, the avant-garde art showcased in Munroe's Japanese Art after 1945 is, by turn, unsettling, strident, and tremulously beautiful. Based on the first exhibition of postwar Japanese avant-garde art ever brought to the U.S., this volume features a set of Japanese critical writings and artist statements never before published in translation. Introductory essays focus on the first stirrings of modern art in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s, a prelude to the wholesale break with tradition that occurred after World War II. Defeat left artists infused with a sense of rebellion and the need to get back to basics: the "meaning of creation and destruction." Munroe and her contributors, including video artist Nam June Paik and architect Isozaki Arata, describe pivotal groups, such as the bold and pioneering Gutai Group and Mono-ha, or School of Things, the source of some magnificent sculptures. The works of numerous and diverse artists working in everything from painting and sculpture to video, film, and performance art are also insightfully discussed, including Yoshihara Jiro, Tomatsu Shomei, and Endo Toshikatsu. This consuming and enlightening overview runs the gamut of avant-garde style, emotional pitch, and political and aesthetic intent, enhancing our understanding of modern Japanese culture. ~--Donna Seaman