Tanizaki, Junichiro.

A Portrait of Shunkin.

New York. Limited Editions Club. 2000. This Edition Limited to 300 numbered copies of which this is #142. Initialed by Hosoe to Afterword. Signed in Japanese by Hosoe and Yahgi to Colophon.  Illustrated with with 3 photogravures by Eikoh Hosoe,printed by intaglio process and impressed upon heavy-weight mould-made Arches stock from his original negatives Small Folio. 9.5" x 13.25". Handbound by Bixler in full, soft-pink Japanese cloth. Title label inset to front cover bearing the calligraphy of Shunkei Yahagi. Encased in a pink ultra-suede lined, sea-grey silk Solander box with caligraphic label inset to Front cover.

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) was a Japanese novelist, essayist, and playwright known for his stylistic virtuosity and depiction of unusual psychological situations.

Junichiro Tanizaki, born in Tokyo, the son of a rice broker, received a conventional education. Entering the Imperial University in 1908, he studied Japanese classical literature but left without taking a degree. From a very young age he was interested in literary pursuits and soon achieved his ambition of devoting his life to art.

Eschewing the flourishing naturalism of the day, Tanizaki sought to create works of beauty through style and mood, inspired in part by the Japanese past and also by certain Western writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Oscar Wilde. Throughout his fiction run strains of eroticism and lyricism together with a good deal of imagery taken from the acute observation of real life. The character of a dominant or destructive woman is much in evidence in many of his novels, as are subtle contrasts of new and old, Japanese and Occidental. Tanizaki saw and depicted vividly the clash between Japan and the West, but on the esthetic plane.

Career as a Novelist

Shunkinsho (1934; A Portrait of Shunkin ), a most exotic tale, depicts an imperious woman named Shunkin, who is a beautiful blind musician, and her abject body servant. Neko to Shozo to Futari no Onna (1936; A Cat, Shozo, and Two Women ) is a perverse and comic novel with a modern setting and humorous tone.

Elected to the Japanese Academy of Art in 1923 and decorated with the Order of Culture in 1949, Tanizaki occupied a position of eminence in the world of letters for many years. He died in July 1965.



Eikoh Hosoe (b. 1933) is a Japanese photographer and filmmaker who emerged in the experimental arts movement of post-World War II Japan. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality. Through his friendships and artistic collaborations he is linked with the writer Yukio Mishima and 1960s avant-garde artists such the dancer Tatsumi Hijikata.

After attending The Tokyo College of Photography in the 1950s Hosoe, joined “Demokrato” an avant-garde artist's group led by the artist Ei Q, while still a student. In 1960, Hosoe created the Jazz Film Laboratory (Jazzu Eiga Jikken-shitsu) with Hijikata, Shuji Terayama, and Sho-mei To-matsu. The Jazz Film Laboratory was a multidisciplinary artistic project aimed at producing highly expressive and intense works such as Hosoe's 1960 short black and white film Navel and A-Bomb (Heso to genbaku).

With Hijikata, Hosoe created Kamaitachi, a series of images that reference stories of a supernatural being — 'weasel-sickle' — that haunted the Japanese countryside of Hosoe's childhood. In the photographs, Hijikata is seen as a wandering ghost mirroring the stark landscape and confronting farmers and children.

With Mishima as a model, Hosoe created a series of dark, erotic images centered on the male body, Ordeal by Roses (Bara-kei, 1963). The series (set in Mishima's Tokyo house) positions Mishima in melodramatic poses. Mishima would follow his fantasies, eventually committing suicide by seppuku in 1970. Hosoe has been the director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Kiyosato, Yamanashi) since its opening in 1995.

Eikoh Hosoe is an integral part of the history of modern Japanese photography. He remains a driving force in photography, not only for his own work, but also as a teacher and ambassador, fostering artistic exchange between Japan and the outside world. His influence has been felt in his native country and throughout the international photographic community.

A Very Fine, Pristine, apparently unread copy. LEC Letter laid-in.

Item #8586