vintage (art)

Barazoku (The rose tribe, "rose" was a term for "gay"), was Japan’s (and Asia’s) first commercial gay magazine. It was published in 1971, and had a run of 33 years until its bankruptcy in 2004. It was a powerful force for the Japanese gay community, the first publication to write about Aids, it published the works of important artist such as Hideki Koh (see 9.14.09), Go Hirano, Minoru Endo and Tatsuji Okawa. Informations about Tatsuji Okawa (1904-1994) are extremely limited. His work first appeared in public in Fuzokukitan in 1964 (gay erotic art started with this publication in Japan, a weird magazine that included all sorts of kinks, both male and female: S&M, fetishism, homosexuality, lesbianism, and transvestism. It was established in 1964 and was available only by subscription. Okawa Tatsuji, Funayam Sanshi, Mishima Go and Hirano Go most frequently contributed to Fuzokukitan). For one of his episodes the novelist Yukio Mishima asked him to draw a picture of Mishima being tortured. In the mid 1970’s, Tetsuji Okawa cleared out his personal stuff, gave his materials to his partner and writer Mamiya Hiroshi, and stopped drawing. He died in 1994 at the age of 90. (Thanks to Japanese Gay Art).

http://www.japanesegayart.com/