May 07, 2007 - Sale 2113

Sale 2113 - Lot 222

Price Realized: $ 1,680
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
KAZUMASA NAGAI (1929- ) [JAPANESE.] Group of 6 posters. Circa 1980s.
Each aproximately 41x29 inches.
Condition varies, generally A. Paper.
A graduate of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Nagai helped to found the Nippon Design center, where he served as director until 2001. Throughout his career he has won practically every possible prize and medal in the graphic arts world. His work can be split into two distinct styles and periods. In his earlier posters he played with abstract, geometric, cosmic shapes and optical effects. But by the end of the 1980s, he suddenly switched to depicting animals (which he also distorted to some degree). This group of posters is for different exhibitions. It is a unique Japanese tradition to give designers virtually unrestricted freedom in their designs, and Nagai continued to use his unique, esoteric style on all of the commissions he received from the mid 1960s through the 1980s. The group includes Toyama Prefecture, Modern Japan Arts, Quebec, Japanese Poster Exhibition, Paris, Scenery of Toyama and Tenri Magazine.