TANIUCHI Rokuro’s Works; from the covers of the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho
Children's Games

In the TANIUCHI Rokuro Pavilion, we display the original paintings for the covers of the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho since its launch in 1956. Creating them was the life work of Taniuchi Rokuro (1930-1981), who produced 1,300 cover paintings. Here we present a selection from that huge oeuvre of fifty paintings at a time, changing the exhibits four times a year. The choice of paintings is based on a variety of themes, with a new theme chosen for each exhibition.

In Children Playing, we present a variety of cover paintings on the theme of play. While “play” has many definitions, it perhaps is clearest when we think of “play” in contrast to “work.” “Work” implies acting efficiently for money or other purposes.“Play” is for one’s own pleasure or satisfaction, not for material gain.

The unique forms of make-believe “play” in these cover paintings draw the eye: playing at being “the sound man,” “a hairdresser,” “a drama set in the future,” even “a planetarium in a barn.” As the text accompanying the Hairdresser cover states, “Children really use utterly unexpected things in thinking up all sorts of ways to play,” and “Play changes in many ways over time, along with changing fashions.” Taniuchi Rokuro discovered in children’s play both creativity and contemporary trends. Through the way children play, let’s think back over the postwar decades.