Kazumasa Nagai
Human Rights, Living Together. Artis 89's Images Internationales pour les Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen
(International Images for the Rights of Humankind)
1989
23 ½ x 33 in. (60 x 84 cm)
Offset
Condition: Excellent
In 1989, in honor of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, the French organization Artis ’89 commissioned a group of 66 artists and graphic designers to produce posters based on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the human rights document of the French Revolution.
Kazumasa Nagai (1929-) is a leading Japanese graphic artist and designer. In the 1980s Nagai began to focus on the animal compositions for which he has become well known. Nagai says, “The animal posters say that there is something akin to space in the heart of each human being, and if you plumb the depths of that space, you touch something like life. To represent this, I borrow the shapes of animals.’’ In this poster representing the concept of “human rights, living together,” Nagai has included a beautifully-rendered face, along with an armadillo!
This poster was on display at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in its 2019 exhibition “Colorful Japan, 266 Posters from the Collection."
