Archiving Activities
Outstanding works of graphic design and graphic art, along with related materials, are collected and preserved to pass down to future generations as a precious cultural legacy.
The Foundation's archives center on two collections: the Tyler Graphics Archive Collection of contemporary American prints and the DNP Graphic Design Archives, a comprehensive collection of contemporary Japanese graphic design. Both collections, together with related materials, are available for viewing or borrowing for educational or research purposes. Interested parties are requested to inquire to the DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion for details.
Tyler Graphics Archive Collection
The Tyler Graphics Archive Collection is a collection of works by a host of artists who collaborated with Tyler Graphics, a leading force behind the robust popularity of contemporary American prints during the second half of the 20th century. Tyler Graphics was founded in New York in 1974 by master printer Kenneth Tyler. The studio is renowned for having expanded the possibilities of the printed arts through technical mastery and innovative ideas unshackled by preconceptions. The Tyler Graphics Archive Collection encompasses some 1,000 works, and related materials, created by Tyler Graphics in collaboration with 40 artists between 1974 and 2000, when the studio ceased its activities. The collection includes numerous works by the giants in the American contemporary art world - artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler - and serves as an invaluable trove offering an overview not only of the history of art prints but of American contemporary art as well.
DNP Graphic Design Archives
Graphic design is the area of art most closely connected to our everyday lives, yet activities to systematically collect, preserve and pass down this superlative cultural legacy to future generations have been inadequate in comparison to corresponding activities focused on paintings, handicraft works and the like. The DNP Graphic Design Archives were launched to ameliorate this situation, and they were instituted by calling upon graphic designers both in Japan and abroad to contribute their representative works to the collection. The Archives now include some 10,000 works by approximately 200 artists of both Japanese and oversea designers, and the collection continues to grow. Meriting special mention are two graphic designers who left their outstanding marks in the Japanese graphic design world: Ikko Tanaka and Shigeo Fukuda, whose families posthumously graciously donated their cherished works and materials. Further, the Foundation had the honor to donate the whole collection of Kazumasa Nagai, also one of the representative designers who have led the Japanese graphic field. Today their works are respectively collected into the Ikko Tanaka Archives, Shigeo Fukuda Archives and Kazumasa Nagai Archives, collections that function as bases for studying about these three irreplaceable artists.