Author: Specimen hikifuda.
Title: Hikifuda of a woman driving a motor car.
Description: n.p. [1914]. Colour woodcut 52x38cm. Stab holes in the margin showing it was once in an album; a little browned and minor signs of use. Rather good. ¶ An shockingly early picture of a Japanese woman driving a car. Cars and planes were the password for modernity through the Taisho, especially in advertising like this, but sleek women were driven by sleek husbands or chauffeurs. This is radical stuff. It's not until well into the twenties that women behind the wheel became common. Common but not really acceptable. Cars were driven by Mogas - modern girls - louche young women with bobbed hair and short skirts, flappers. The history of early Japanese women motorists, in English, is blank. Can some expert out there help? These hikifuda - small posters or handbills - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed. The handy calendar is for 1915.

Keywords: graphic art advertising posters hikifuda c20th Japan Asia modernism women feminism transport automobiles motor cars motoring