Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan
From the Publisher. This book is a pioneering study of Japanese ornamental textiles made for the foreign market during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These exquisite embroideries, resist-dyed silks and velvets, tapestries, and appliquéd works were an important feature of the Western fascination with all things Japanese at that time, winning numerous accolades at international fairs and being used to decorate homes across Europe and the United States. Yet since then they have been largely forgotten. This book, which will appeal to textile enthusiasts and those interested in Japanese art and Japonisme alike, celebrates these remarkable and undervalued textiles. It discusses their production techniques, iconography, patronage, and trade and demonstrates how Kyoto craftsmen created a modern art form by adapting their traditional skills to Western tastes. The book accompanies an exhibition of the same name opening at the Ashmolean Museum on 9 November 2012. Featuring textiles from the newly formed collection of the Kiyomizu- Sannenzaka Museum in Kyoto and from the Ashmolean's own holdings, this is the first exhibition of Japanese ornamental textiles of the Meiji period (1868-1912) to be held outside Japan.
Japanese textiles invite multi-sensory interaction from design mavens and textile collectors alike. Intricately embroidered surfaces and luxurious silk folds seem to cry out for appreciative human touch. Mark this catalogue from a recent show of extremely rare Japanese textiles designed solely for Western markets a rare achievement. Production values were so rigorous for this volume that a reader comes as close as possible to sensing the depth and irregular surfaces of textiles.
Since these commissioned or market purchased textiles were intended to decorate the interiors of Victorian-era homes, wall hangings and screens abound, festooned with de rigueur Oriental exotica, embroidered dragons, phoenixes, and tigers. But surprising subject matter intrudes as well since this work was entirely export fare. There are hangings with kitschy embroidered American flags Jasper Johns might envy, and a naturalistic seascape worthy of a beach town’s souvenir shop. The tawdriest imagery is totally redeemed, however, by baroquely ornate embroidery patterns crowned with gold thread stitching of stunning virtuosity. The few dozen surviving Japanese textiles from Meiji Japan featured here—few people took these textiles seriously as art worth preserving in the West in the late 19th century, so many examples have decayed—shimmer and glow with an otherworldly splendor evocative of a Noh play, or to amplify the East-West cultural exchange factor, a Morris Graves painting of a rare bird of an inner eye with deep Asian vision.
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If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP: by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
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