WWII Imperial Japanese Army War Art Exhibition Book Fujita Koiso 1941 For Sale

DescriptionPublished in 1941, only months before Japan entered the Pacific War, this large-format volume is the official catalogue of the Second Holy War Art Exhibition.This was not an ordinary art show.The exhibition was jointly organized by the Asahi Shimbun and the Imperial Japanese Army Art Association, with the support of the Japanese Army Ministry. The Army Art Association had been established in 1939 as a wartime art organization closely connected to the Army and military information authorities.Its participants included some of the most important names in modern Japanese art, including:Tsuguharu Fujita, Ryohei Koiso, Saburo Miyamoto, Kenichi Nakamura, and Usaburo Ihara.These were not unknown military illustrators. They were among the leading professional artists of their generation.Many wartime artists were actually sent to operational areas as official or semi-official war artists. They observed soldiers, battlefields, military transport, wounded men, landscapes, and frontline conditions firsthand, then transformed those experiences into large-scale paintings intended to record and communicate the war.This volume reproduces numerous dramatic works depicting scenes such as infantry assaults, armored vehicles, mountain fighting, river crossings, battlefield casualties, evacuation of wounded soldiers, and operations in China.Among the featured artists is Tsuguharu Fujita, later internationally known as Léonard Foujita, as well as other major figures of Japanese modern painting.The historical timing makes this book especially significant.By 1941, Japan had already been engaged in prolonged warfare in China. Only a few months after this exhibition and publication, Japan would enter the Pacific War in December 1941.For that reason, this book is more than a collection of military paintings.It is a surviving document of the moment when art, the military, modern mass media, and wartime propaganda became deeply intertwined in Japan.The oversized format, approximately 40 cm class, gives the reproduced paintings a presence that ordinary wartime publications simply do not have.An especially interesting piece for collectors and researchers of:Imperial Japanese Army history, Japanese war art, Tsuguharu Fujita, modern Japanese painting, wartime propaganda, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and military cultural history.Rather than simply showing us how war was fought, this book shows us how Japan chose to picture war in 1941.Own a Piece of History.Shipping

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