JAPANESE MODERN: Graphic Designs Between the Wars...

JAPANESE MODERN: Graphic Designs Between the Wars by James Fraser, Steven Heller & Seymour Chwast (Chronicle: $16.95; 132 pp., paperback original). Chronicle’s noteworthy series on Art Deco graphics continues with an overview of the Modernist movement in Japan. The advertisements of the ‘20s and ‘30s reflected the ongoing cross-pollination between Western and Japanese visual styles. The results are sometimes odd, but the most successful works meld diverse traditions into a stylishly elegant whole.