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overview
Kazumasa Nagai (Japanese: 永井 一正, Nagai Kazumasa; Ōsaka, April 20, 1929) is a Japanese printmaker and graphic designer most known for his poster designs and typography. He attended the University of the Arts in Tokyo to study sculpture, but had to stop due to health problems. The same year he was hired at Daiwabo Co., a textile manufacturing company where he was in charge of advertising, and so began his career as a graphic designer.

Kazumasa Nagai (Japanese: 永井 一正, Nagai Kazumasa; Ōsaka, April 20, 1929). In 1964, he took part in documenta III, in Kassel. Nagai was known for his innovative avant-garde poster designs, which often included abstract and geometric shapes, bold and vibrant colors to create visually striking posters.

In 1959, Kazumasa Nagai joined the 21 Association, in Tokyo. This was a meeting of designers who, on the 21st of each month, discussed graphic design, architecture, film, and typography

career
He was a founding member of the Nippon Design Center (NDC)(1959) a leading organisation aimed to improve the quality of Japanese graphic design through collaboration with major companies. (1959), where he was its President from 1975 to 1986, Vice-President until 2001, and Senior Executive Advisor until today. He also designed the logo which is still used.

(1994) President of Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA)

In 1952 he co-founded—with Ikko Tanaka, and two others—the A-Club in Osaka that organized study meetings for local designers. In 1953 he also joined the JAAC (Japan Advertising Artists Club)y, that strongly contributed to establish the social importance of graphic design in post-war Japan.

In 1953 he also joined the JAAC (Japan Advertising Artists Club), that strongly contributed to establish the social importance of graphic design in post-war Japan.

1959, Kazumasa Nagai joined the 21 Association, in Tokyo. This was a meeting of designers who, on the 21st of each month, discussed graphic design, architecture, film, and typography

works
he created the iconic corporate logos for such major companies as mitsubishi UFJ and japan railways as well as thousands of posters, many of which are exhibited in modern art museums around the world. kazumasa nagai is recognized for his unique, timeless and visually dynamic imagery.

During the 1960s, he designed some beautiful posters for Nikkor—the brand of lenses produced by Nikon Corporation based on rigorous geometry and optical perception. Author of numerous excellent marks, in 1965 he designed the logotype of Asahi Breweries, the largest beer producer in Japan.

1964 Cooperated in the design for each event of the Tokyo Olympics and received a letter of appreciation from the Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee.

Kazumasa Nagai’s works are created by hand and usually silk-printed. This way, they are much closer to fine art than to pure design as usually understood.

In 2015 Kazumasa Nagai was the head of the Tokyo Olympics Committee that chose the identity system designed by Kenjiro Sano—one of the most interesting of recent Olympic identities

Although his first works were abstract at the beginning, he changed for handmade designs of animals and plants in the 1980s. Some of his works appeared on the cover of LIFE. And surprisingly, most posters from the 1960s and 70s even now look modern and relevant.

recent works
Kazumasa Nagai has produced more than 1,000 posters. This series is one on which he has been working since the 1980s, when he switched from abstract work to handmade tangible subjects. Working with the theme of “life,”

Nowadays, Kazumasa Nagai, due to his venerable age, is not so efficient anymore, but still paints only by hand, without resorting to new technologies.(7)

Nagai’s work on animals deserves special attention. Through traditional graphic techniques and the symbolic meaning of the animals he depicted, the artist created timeless images that refer not only to traditional Japanese art, but also to the origins of art in principle. Nagai gives his animals original, often simplified forms and paints them in bright colours.

collaborations
During his long career, he moved from a Gestalt-oriented graphic design to figurative and symbolic illustration dedicated to nature started in 1987 with the series “Japan” and culminated with the copperplate engravings titled “Life.” In 2014 he collaborated with Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please, developing a fashion collection and showroom exhibition.

expeditions
1964, participated in Documenta III festival in Kassel

1989 participated in the moma exhibition ‘recent japanese posters from the collection”

1999, one man LIFE poster expeditions at the national museum of modern art, Tokyo and international design center NAGOYA

achievements/ rewards
He was awarded prestigious recognitions including the Art Encouragement Prize from the Japan Ministry of Education in 1988, the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 1989, the Mainichi Design Prize—the most prestigious Japanese design award—in 1994, Tokyo ADC (Art Directors Club) Grand Prize in 1996, the Order of the Rising Sun (4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette) and the Yusaku Kamakura Design Award in 1999, the JAGDA Award in 2009, and many others including numerous Gold Prize and Grand Prix from the International Biennale of Brno, Helsinki, Kharkiv, Moscow, Warsaw, Xalapa, and Zagreb.

His work is held in many museums, including the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of New Zealand, the British Museum, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, and the Museum of Modern Art.

References and sources

 * documenta III. Internationale Ausstellung; Katalog: Band 1: Malerei und Skulptur; Band 2: Handzeichnungen; Band 3: Industrial Design, Graphik; Kassel/Colonia 1964