Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan

New York/Seattle: New York Public Library/University of Washington Press, 2006. Hardcover. VG (Boards are lightly edgeworn; interior is clean; binding is solid.)/VG (DJ is edgeworn/scuffed/smudged.). Red boards with silver lettering; red and cream-colored DJ with colorful illustration and black, red and white lettering; interior is clean; binding is solid. "Ehon - or "picture books," in Japanese - are part of an incomparable 1,230-year-old Japanese tradition. Created by artists and craftsmen, most ehon also feature essays, poems, or other texts written in beautiful, distinctive calligraphy. They are by nature collaborations: visual artists, calligraphers, writers, and designers join forces with papermakers, binders, block cutters, and printers. The books they create are strikingly beautiful, highly charged microcosms of deep feeling, sharp intensity, and extraordinary intelligence. In the elegant, richly illustrated Ehon: the artist and the book in Japan, renowned scholar Roger S. Keyes traces the history and evolution of these remarkable books through seventy key works, including many great rarities and unique masterpieces, from the Spencer Collection of The New York Public Library, one of the foremost collections of Japanese illustrated books in the West."-- Jacket.