Publisher: The National Museum of Modern Art
Language: mainly Japanese, English
ISBN-10: –
ISBN-13: 978-4907102029
Product Dimensions: 25.5 x 18.5 x 1.2 cm
Release Date: 2013
Price: sold
Foreword
The 1964 Tokyo Olympics Games have been recognized as an important
event in Japan’s postwar history. Twenty years after being soundly defeated
in World War ii, the country hosted the Games with national pride at stake
to show its presence as an advanced nation in the international community.
The Olympiad not only helped accelerate .Japan’s economic growth, but
also changed Japanese society and contributed to departee nature pride.
The Olympic Games are a sports festival. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics
were as well a major design project involving an all-out effort by leading
Japanese designers. Prominent among the designs for the Tokyo Olympics,
are the posters by Kamekura Yusaku. The posters though were not all that
was designed for the Tokyo Olympics. Under the direction of design critic
Katsumi Masaru, leading postwar designers such as Hara Hiromu, Keno
Takashi, Yamashiro Ryuichi, Tanaka lkko, Awazu Kiyoshi and Yanagi Sori
designed a wide range of articles including tickets, invitation letters, medals,
badges. award certificates, bulletins, programs, reports, ID cards, uniforms,
commemorative coins and stamps, torches, promotional decorations
and guidance signs. The designs produced for the Games gained an
international reputation, providing a model for later international events,
More than anything the project helped Japanese people personally feel
the power of design.
Nearly fifty years has passed since the T964 Tokyo Olympics. Now with
the drive to bring the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo gathering momentum,
this exhibition looks back at the design project forthe T964 Tokyo Olympics
to examine the role that designers played in the event, and to add to the
enthusiasm of the Japanese people for the Games.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the Japanese Olympic
Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee for their support, to
individual collectors fortheir generosity in lending us invaluable items, and to
all the people concerned tortheir assistance to our project.
February 2013
Karnogawa Sachio
Director
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo