Maggs Bros.

Made within the Mingei circle: a collaboration between husband and wife scholars Jugaku Bunsho (1900–1992) and Jugaku Shizuko (née Iwahashi, 1901–1981) and Serizawa Keisuke.

Jugaku Bunsho was a scholar based in Kyoto. Yanagi Soetsu was living in Kyoto at the same time and the two came to know one another and develop ideas that would lay the foundations of the Mingei Movement. Together with his wife Shizuko, a well-respected scholar in her own right, he travelled throughout Japan to visit paper-makers and carefully document their history and practice. The present book is the published fruits of their labour - a survey across the whole of Japan, each section arranged by region. While this title was bring published Jugaku became a member of the Washi Kenkyu-kai (Japanese Paper Research Association) and continued to publish influential essays on paper-making.

The book is an appropriately skilled production, entirely printed onto beautiful handmade Japanese paper. Serizawa was commissioned to design the cover, title page and several vignettes inside. This was not the first collaboration between Serizawa and Jugaku, having designed bindings for his translated works on William Blake.

Rare. Only one copy in OCLC (University of Michigan). The first edition of this title was printed in 1943, which was then greatly expanded and republished in 1944. This is the edition that came a year later, with a dust jacket and title page printed and hand-coloured by Serizawa.