Kazumasa Nagai

28 ½ x 40 ½ in. (72 x 103 cm)

Offset Lithograph

Condition: Excellent

UCLA’s Yanai Initiative, founded in 2014, brings together international scholars, writers and performing artists involved with the Japanese humanities. In 2016 the program sponsored the creation of 11 posters by Japanese graphic designers to promote its performing arts program. Many of the designers involved had also contributed to an important 1981 poster series in conjunction with a Japanese performing arts festival held at UCLA that year.

This poster by Kazumasa Nagai (1929-), a leading Japanese graphic artist and designer, celebrates Kyogen, a traditional form of Japanese comic theater. The lines inside the circular mouth are the Kanji characters for Kyogen.