The year 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of Ikko Tanaka’s passing, who is one of the greatest Japanese graphic designers in its history. Ginza Graphic Gallery will bring about the exhibition “DNP Graphic Design Archives Collection IV: Ikko Tanaka Posters 1980-2002”.
In January 2010, on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of Mr. Tanaka’s demise, a grand retrospective was held of works gleaned from the “Ikko Tanaka Archives” established in 2008, with a focus on those created between 1953 and 1979. Specifically, the exhibition showed 161 posters from Mr. Tanaka’s early to middle periods.
For this second exhibition, 150 of Mr. Tanaka’s representative works have again been selected, this time concentrating on his later period spanning from 1980 through 2002. Within Mr. Tanaka’s remarkable legacy, his achievements as a poster artist merit special notice. In particular it was during his later years that Mr. Tanaka established an unshakable reputation as one of the world’s foremost poster designers.
It was during this period that Mr. Tanaka produced a wealth of his very finest posters – “Nihon Buyo”, for instance, that drew enthusiastic encomiums. Even in his later years, through to the very end, he fully retained his creative freshness and acute sensibility. This exhibition of Mr. Tanaka’s greatest works from this period will surely serve as an occasion for making new encounters with the timeless appeal of this eminent and unparalleled artist.