Japanese

Cecil Beaton.

The John Day Company. New York. 1959. First edition. American edition. Hardback, quarto; red cloth-bound boards, backed with black cloth, gilt title to spine, dust jacket. xl pages. Several line drawings in the text and 132 hors texte black & white photographs, including 8 folding-plates. English. 285 x 225mm. 1kg. . Near fine, in very good dust jacket; slight shelf wear, slight rubbing to jacket, light wear to forecorners, some browning to spine, price-clipped; blind stamp of R. S. Latham to title-page.

In January 1957 Beaton made his first trip to Japan, accompanied by his friend Truman Capote. This ‘souvenir’ of his visit contains written impressions of the sites and people of Japan, accompanied by photographs and drawings. Beaton’s abiding impression of the country was a cultural jumble of ‘kitsch and kimono.’  The photographs he took are collected into eight sections - The Country, Kabuki Theatre, Japanese Dancers, In Streets, Sights and Shrines, Noh Plays and Bunraku Puppets, Geisha and Others, An Appendix of People. The book has a Japanese-inspired aesthetic with a binding of shocking-pink rice paper boards, brushwork style drawings and pared-back portrait photographs.