Thank you for sharing National Library Week 2020 with us! This year, we shared highlights from Georgia O’Keeffe’s personal library. Please enjoy this 4-part series revisiting those titles.
Josiah Conder (1852-1920) was a British architect who lived, taught and worked in Japan. In 1891, Conder wrote The Flower of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement, and with this text, Conder was among the first to introduce the art of Japanese floral arrangement to a Western audience. This book was illustrated by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) and Kawanabe Kyosui (1868-1935). View a copy of this book in the British Museum's Online Collections.
This copy, from Georgia O’Keeffe’s personal library, appears to have been gifted by Josiah Conder to [Arthur] Lasenby Liberty. Liberty (here spelled Lazemby) was the founder of Liberty & Co. in London and lived in Regents Park. It is not immediately clear how this book came to be in O’Keeffe’s collection.
Found inside this book a schematic drawing of flower arrangements and a sheet of typed instructions on the arrangements of flowers.
The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement by
