I've missed this exhibit at Boston's MFA, unfortunately, but I bought the book. It's the
Art of the Japanese Postcard. The show looked great. There's a wide assortment of cards on view on the site. And the book was one of the NYTimes notable art books from last year. Unfortunately it'll take 1-2
months for me to see my copy arrive from Amazon. :-(
Happy New Year everyone!
Incidentally, here's what the NYTimes had to say about the book: "Keats said that reading Chapman's translation of Homer felt like watching an unknown planet float into view. You might have a similar reaction to Art of the Japanese Postcard: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA Publications, paper, $29.95). Beginning in 1900, with the lifting of the government monopoly on the printing of postcards, many of Japan's leading artists tried their hand at designing in this exotic new medium borrowed from the West. It took a while for Japanese woodblock prints to be appreciated for the masterpieces they are, and the same could be said -- in fact, is said, by Anne Nishimura Morse and other sharp-eyed scholars writing in this exhibition catalog -- about the neglected genre of the postcard. In this spell-inducing volume, you'll find the encounter of East and West given a fresh treatment. A Japanese woman swings a tennis racket against a backdrop of blue morning glories. Some of the most arresting cards are aerial views: colorful parasols amid the shadows of their owners; Art Nouveau swimmers grasping a lifesaver; and three cavalrymen riding into battle in the Russo-Japanese War, exactly 100 years ago."
