Collection of Livre d'Artiste [138 volumes & 20 book boxes)

Book Description

1983. TAKEI Takeo, author/artist. Collection of Japanese Livre d'Artiste [138 volumes & 20 book boxes]. In the course of his long career as an artist and book designer, Takei returned time and again to the publication of these small format artist's books, often with a child-oriented theme, his so-called "kampon". The first appeared in 1935, the last the year after he died in 1983 - a total of 139 of them, all in edition sizes ranging from 150 to 600 copies (the majority were limited to 300 cc), usually signed and numbered, in various non-uniform small sizes. As part of playful approach to book production, Takei also designed 21 "honbako" book boxes, to hold his small treasures. Early on Takei decided that the kampon would be his artistic playground and he explored every conceivable technique therein of image reproduction, inventing quite a number of new ones along the way. The power of Takei's artistic imagination and ongoing creativity is amazing, one may literally sit with these volumes for hours and listen to how the books speak to each other and to the browser, as well. Oliver Statler has a nice summary of Takei's work in his MODERN JAPANESE PRINTS: An ART REBORN. (pp 93-96) We are offering all but volume one of the series, 138 of 139 volumes. In addition, we are including 19 of the original 21 limited edition book boxes as well. Though some volumes have a bit of internal foxing here and there and there is some cover wear, overall, the volumes are lovely. The book boxes are clean and tight.

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