Customer comments on this selection.
 Chinese Label Art: 1900-1976
If you collect Chinese labels this is a must have book.
A fine survey of packaging and labels from the period
Chinese label art has long been outstanding, so it's surprising that few coverages of Chinese ad art have revealed its history before. CHINESE LABEL ART 1900-1976 provides a fine survey of packaging and labels from the period, pairing stunning images from around China to beyond its borders into Hong Kong and Macau. From tea and medicines to foods, cigarettes, firecrackers and religious items, over 400 color images pair with an authoritative discussion of history and art from Andy Cahan, who has been collecting Chinese ephemera for most of his life.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Fantastic !
In this fantastic work (in all meanings of the word), Cahan opens a door to an utterly unique aesthetic - one most of us have only caught a glimpse of when we set off firecrackers as a child, or wandered through an Asian Food Market - a world of lurid colors and incredibly ornate designs, populated with dragons, temples, bearded Mandarins, strange winged creatures, and smiling sages. An initial epiphany during a celebration of lunar new year in New York's Chinatown when he was an infant led Andrew Cahan into a collecting odyssey - into old shops and factories in the backstreets of the "Chinatowns" of U.S. cities to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei. This beautifully printed book is a distillation of the fabulous collection of graphic art Cahan accumulated in his lifetime of collecting. Cahan's insightful commentary on the art illuminates the use of colors, symbols, and designs, as the art evolved in response to religious, political, and cultural influences from both within and outside of the region.
I would like to second the previous reviewer's perceptive and enthusiastic endorsement of this book! The Graphic Arts of China is a delightful and beautiful work of art in itself. Here's an opportunity to learn all about an utterly exotic and previously unexplored cultural phenomenon, while experiencing a vision of a fantastic world, reminiscent of the imaginary China of Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books. Highly recommended!
A Charming Surprise and a Wellspring of Hip Design Ideas
Sometimes the best way to understand a culture is to take a deep look at it through a keyhole: the home cooking of French housewives, appreciation for American R&B records in the rural villages of Africa, the flourishing of Yiddish newspapers on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Now Andrew Cahan opens a window to understanding Chinese culture through an unexpected route: the vivid, fantastic, charming, and surprisingly hip label art that appeared on packaging for fireworks, cigarettes, and other consumer products in the early-to-mid 20th Century.
Most of this book, as it should be, is pictures, and what glorious pictures they are! The smiling face of Buddha unexpectedly adorns a pack of firecrackers; an entrancing image of a deer with a pine shoot in its mouth stands before a snowy mountain on a fabric label; one of dozens of happy infant boys raises his hands on a label for "The Baby" cigarettes. Along the way, Cahan offers fascinating insights on the changing social dynamics in China during that tumultuous century, examining gender issues (without getting tedious) and the ways the rise of Communism altered community values (without getting polemical). Along the way, he tells his own story of being a young suburban Jewish kid who was seduced by these brightly colored curiosa on visits to New York's Chinatown. His writing style is warm, elegant, and full of affection for his subject.
For people who collect this stuff, this book is a must-buy. But if I was a young rock star shopping for a killer-hip design for my next CD cover, I'd get a million ideas browsing through this marvelous book.
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