Ruler: Keiichi Tanaami

December 30th, 2010 by Dan Nadel

I’m excited to be distributing Keiichi Tanaami’s latest book: A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami, which is a collection of his drawings for animations with a DVD containing the best of this work from 1974 to the present. Tanaami, with Tadanori Yokoo, is one of the premier exponent of free form psychedelia in Japan. Besides luminous silkscreen posters replete with Western signifiers, Tanaami staged and participated in happenings all across Japan in the late 1960s. He crossed over into theater, fashion, and eventually magazine design, as art director of the Japanese Playboy in the 1970s. Like a lot of pop artists of the time, he has kept  in play his luscious female forms, goldfish, and musical icons throughout his career. So following him is like following the evolution of a beautiful, often inscrutable, visual language.

Here’s a solid bio of the man from his gallery, and a good interview from 2007.

And some examples:

Poster, late 1960s

Poster, 1977

Poster, late 1960s

Poster, late 1960s

And finally, this is a fun BBC intro to the man and his work. A bit campy, but fine.