Author: Shogakusei Zenshu. Okano Sakae [cover design].
Title: [Sanjutsu no Hanashi].
Description: Tokyo, Kobunsha 1928 [Showa 3]. Octavo, cloth backed publisher's illustrated card wrapper; illustrated title in red, one colour plate and numerous b/w illustrations and diagrams through the text. Minor signs of use and usual browning; quite good. Shogakusei Zenshu no.73. ¶ The Shogakusei Zenshu, or Complete Works for Elementary Schools, runs to some 88 volumes of educational texts and literature - much of this in translation; few of them seem elementary. This one is arithmetic. I believe that if my maths texts looked like this my education would have been much more rewarding. This masterpiece of a cover is by Okano Sakae, one of the generation of artists who came through the western painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts at the beginning of the century, later a pupil of Kuroda Seiki, and collaborator with fellow Hakubakai students on the five volume Nihon Meisho Shasei Kiko.

Keywords: mathematics arithmetic education childrens juvenile graphic art design modernism c20th Japan Asia 40