Back to Japan: The Life and Art of Master Kimono Painter Kunihiko Moriguchi

Bustle Best Book of the Month

From the critically acclaimed author of The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris, a fascinating, intimate portrait of one of Japan's most influential and respected textile artists.

Writer, filmmaker, and photographer Marc Petitjean finds himself in Kyoto one fine morning with his camera, to film a man who will become his friend: Kunihiko Moriguchi, a master kimono painter and Living National Treasure--like his father before him.

As a young decorative arts student in the 1960s, Moriguchi rubbed shoulders with the cultural elite of Paris and befriended Balthus, who would profoundly influence his artistic career. Discouraged by Balthus from pursuing design in Europe, he returned to Japan to take up his father's vocation. Once back in this world of tradition he had tried to escape, Moriguchi contemporized the craft of Yūzen (resist dyeing) through his innovative use of abstraction in patterns.

With a documentarian's keen eye, Petitjean retraces Moriguchi's remarkable life, from his childhood during the turbulent 1940s and 50s marked by war, to his prime as an artist with works exhibited in the most prestigious museums in the world.

Author: Marc Petitjean
Publisher: Other Press (NY)
Published: 11/09/2021
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 7.60h x 4.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781635420906


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 10/15/2021 pg. 13

About the Author
Marc Petitjean is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer. He has directed several documentaries, including From Hiroshima to Fukushima, on Dr. Shuntaro Hida, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; Living Treasure, about Japanese kimono painter Kunihiko Moriguchi; and Zones grises, on his own search for information about the life of his father, Michel Petitjean, after his death.

Adriana Hunter studied French and Drama at the University of London. She has translated nearly ninety books, including Véronique Olmi's Bakhita and Hervé Le Tellier's Eléctrico W, winner of the French-American Foundation's 2013 Translation Prize in Fiction. She lives in Kent, England.