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A delightful primer on early-to-mid-20th-century Japan's fruitful fusion of music and design, as materialized in sheet musicJapanese society underwent a whirlwind of change during the first half of the 20th century, a time period marked by rapid modernization. While Western influences catalyzed an increasingly rapacious appetite for consumer goods, new sounds and mass-produced images flooded the stereos and screens of Japanese citizens.Perhaps more than any other objects from the period, sheet music covers graphically embodied this vortex of sights, sounds, events and ideas. Most commonly arranged for harmonica, piano, guitar and violin, music scores encompassed songs ranging from traditional Japanese folk tunes to movie scores, Western jazz, opera and patriotic marches. Publishers of music churned out sheets bound in graphically designed covers as diverse as the music within, illustrated in both Japanese- and European-influenced styles, including Art Nouveau, Modernism, Constructivism, collage and Art Deco.Featuring vibrant reproductions alongside essays by leading scholars, Songs for Modern Japan provides a window for the specialist and nonspecialist alike into Japanese society and culture during this time of immense change. Sheet music covers from a glittering array of artists are showcased: Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934), who was often called the "modern Utamaro" and the "Japanese Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch"; Saito Kazo (1887-1955), contributor of erotically tinged Art Deco designs; Onchi Koshiro (1891-1955), the first to produce Japan's first purely abstract work; and Suzuki Shigeyoshi (1900-76), whose oeuvre was infused with radical leftist imagery. Art historians provide contextualizing information on the artists' works, delineating the genres and themes present in each as well as their impact on fashion and media at large.

The lives, works and imagery of women artists, patrons and icons in Renaissance ItalyThe story of the Renaissance in Italy is often told through the work of great male artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Leonardo. But what about the female half of the population? By exploring works made by, for, or about women, this book aims to reconsider a period of creative ingenuity and artistic excellence from their often-overlooked perspective.Drawing on the rich collection of paintings, ceramics, textiles, illustrated books and prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this publication focuses on images of feminine power, both sacred and secular, telling the stories of saints such as Mary Magdalen as examples of strength and ascetic devotion, Biblical heroines such as Judith as civic and domestic role models, and the mythical sorceress Medea as the ideal of a heroic nude. Women also asserted their presence as artists, artisans and patrons: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi, Vittoria Colonna, Isabella d'Este and Eleonora Gonzaga are just some of the strong women who shaped the life and art of the Italian Renaissance.

Bowling's transition to abstraction, seen against the backdrop of 1960s-'70s debates on abstract art and the Black Arts movement"Modernism belonged to me also." So resolved the British Guiana-born artist Frank Bowling in 1966, when he moved from his temporary home base of London to New York City, keen to make his mark on modern painting. This volume surveys for the first time the transformative years that Bowling spent in the US from 1966 through 1975, a chapter of extraordinary productivity and artistic growth that would greatly shape his thinking and practice.Bowling's relocation to New York brought him into contact with an art scene in flux, with abstract painting on the rise and vigorous debates unfolding around Black cultural identity and artistic practice. Bowling participated in this scene in broad and deep ways, from his unique vantage point as an emigre twice over: exhibiting widely, writing for art magazines, engaging peers in dialogue and, in 1969, organizing 5+1, an exhibition of five leading African American abstract artists plus himself. During these years, his own work explored the tension between representational imagery and fields of color, ultimately moving toward full abstraction.Frank Bowling's Americas assembles more than 30 paintings--many rarely seen--from this critical period, and places them in the context of both Bowling's own artistic trajectory and the New York art scene at a time of aesthetic and racial reckoning. Offering magnificent reproductions of these vibrant, multifaceted works, accompanied by curatorial essays and statements by contemporary artists, this book invites new understanding of an artist whose work has remained always in motion.Born in British Guiana in 1934, Frank Bowling arrived in London in 1953, graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1962. By the early 1960s, he was recognized as an original force in London's art scene. After moving to New York in 1966, Bowling shifted away from figurative imagery. He returned to London in 1975 but continued to spend significant periods in New York. Bowling was awarded a knighthood in 2020. He is the subject of a BBC documentary, Frank Bowling's Abstract World.

Edited by Christine Kondoleon. Text by Richard Grossmann, Jennifer L. Heuser.