Maggs Bros. Ltd.

An extremely rare work by the Japanese émigré artist Hikoyama Teikichi (1884–1957). In the opening to the book Hikoyama proudly proclaims 'Drawing woodcutting printing bookbinding done by myself work of 1923 San Francisco'.

Hikoyama was born in Shizuoka prefecture, to the south of Tokyo. In 1902, aged 18, he arrived by ship to America, alighting in California. This was amid a mass migration of Japanese people to America, when there were serious labour shortages in Japan. Between 1919 and 1925 he lived with Oka Shigeki (1878–1959), a printer/publisher and well-known socialist who started the San Francisco branch of the Heiminsha 'Association of Common Men' anti-War group. Hikoyama helped Oka run the Kimmon Press, which printed socialist material.

Though a relatively unknown artist, Hikoyama was a founding member of the East West Art Society (EWAS). Initially founded with fellow Japanese-Americans Obata Chiura (1885-1975) and Matsusaburo George Hibi (1886-1947), it grew to a membership of over thirty Japanese, Chinese, American and Russian artists based in California. The EWAS was founded in 1921 and in 1924 it held its inaugural group show at the San Francisco Museum of Art. The present self-published book by Hikoyama was made the year before this important exhibition.

The book itself has a distinctly Modernist feel, with beautifully restrained image-making and typography. Each plate is printed in woodblock, subtly showing the grain of the block itself. The subjects are mixed; we are shown portraits of famous figures such as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu, Salome, and Adam and Eve, as well as landscapes, stylish 1920s women and more abstract concepts such as 'Passion'. There is a very East-meets-West feel to the book as whole.

Hikoyama returned to Japan in the early 1930s and died in Tokyo in 1957. Leaving America at this time, he avoided being put into a Japanese internment camp, which sadly some of his EWAS contemporaries fell victim to.

Extremely rare. No copies in OCLC.