Tokyo: Proletarian Artists League, 1930. Square duodecimo (12.2 x 13 cm). Original side-stapled pictorial wrappers; [2], 28 pp. Staples rusted, overall very good condition.

The proletarian arts movement in Eastern Asia rose in the wake of the global upheaval prominent from 1917 to 1921. Massive revolutions, strikes, and occupations throughout the United States, Europe, and South America helped bring about a period of major social change and modernism to Japan. "The proletarian arts movement was built by thinkers, activists, artists and writers whose world resembled ours with war, imperialism, uneven economic growth, and culture wars." ("Proletarian Arts in East Asia", Heather Bowen-Struyk, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 5, Issue 4, No. 13, April 2, 2007). The Japanese Proletarian Artists' Federation was formed in 1928.

The volume presented here is an original catalogue from the Third Great Exhibition of Proletarian Art. The first two exhibitions were held in 1929 and the fourth and last exhibition was held in 1932. At that time, being associated with a proletarian movement was becoming unsafe.

Laid into the catalogue are a flyer for the exhibition and an original worker's ticket. Different from tickets which were given to the general public, visiting workers were counted and surveyed for their opinions on the exhibition.

As of March 2023, we could not locate a single holding of this catalogue through OCLC.

Book ID: 52777

Price: $950.00