Shin-bijutsu koza: Yoga-ka 

Harue Koga, a cover of the art textbook Shin-bijutsu koza: Yoga-ka (New Art Course: Western-Style Painters), 1928. Until 7 August, the Hibiya Library & Museum in downtown Tokyo offers an eye-opening view of graphic design from this era in its exhibition Blooming of Japanese Modernism. Divided into "chapters" roughly by genre (commercial design, publications, children's and women's literature, Japonism, entertainment, fashion), the potpourri of items on display is helpfully organized to highlight specific artists. Covers for Mitsukoshi, the magazine of the flagship Ginza department store, to nearly all of the country's early cigarette packages. The latter is a fascinating genre in itself. Though tobacco had been smoked in pipes in Japan ever since it arrived with Portuguese traders in the 16th century, cigarettes only came into vogue during the Taisho. The tobacco industry, a state monopoly, began introducing one brand after another, and Sugiura was their go-to package designer. These are brilliant works in miniature, sometimes with downright bizarre graphics: His logo for Hibiki (Echo) cigarettes is a pattern of concentric radio signals radiating out over a row of smoke-belching factory chimneys.