Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Ishioka, Eiko
- Abstract:
- Material in this collection relates to the career of the multi-faceted designer Eiko Ishioka, encompassing her work in the performing arts, especially on various stage productions; for exhibitions, fashion shows, and athletic teams; in advertising; and in book, periodical, record cover, and product and packaging design. Items include costume drawings and sketches, set design drawings, performance production records and photographs, and fabric samples. The collection also contains numerous posters, photographs, slides, transparencies, negatives, and production material pertaining to design projects and advertising campaigns, as well as audiovisual and born-digital material. Additionally some items relate to Ishioka's student work in Tokyo, including artwork, design projects and photographs.
- Extent:
- 859.75 linear feet (275 document boxes, 63 record cartons, 116 flat boxes, 55 oversize flat boxes, 11 shoe boxes, 37 telescope boxes, 151 oversized folders, 39 film and video canisters), 173 Gigabytes (digital files from 289 discs), and 3 born-digital carriers
- Language:
- Materials are in English and Japanese.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Eiko Ishioka papers (Collection 2288). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Material in the Eiko Ishioka papers relates to nearly every aspect of the designer's multi-faceted career. Her work in the performing arts is documented through costume drawings and sketches, set design drawings, research material, production records and photographs, fabric samples, and audiovisual material for numerous stage projects, including the Broadway productions M. Butterfly (1988) and David Copperfield: Dreams & Nightmares (1996), the operas Chushingura (1997) and The Ring of the Nibelung (1997-1998), and Cirque du Soleil's Varekai (2002). Although this collection holds little material relating to her work in film, it does contain original costume design drawings and sketches for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), as well as several posters designed by Ishioka for the Japanese releases of that film, Apocalypse Now, and others. In addition, the collection documents other varied projects including the curation of exhibitions dedicated to the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, Nuba (1980) and Life (1992); posters designed for inclusion in or as advertising for numerous exhibitions; and several collaborations with fashion designer Issey Miyake in the 1970s.
This collection also documents Ishioka's design of books, particularly Eiko by Eiko (1983); journals, including Wild Times, and magazine articles; record album covers, especially Miles Davis' Tutu; and products and packaging, through production material such as photographs, drawings, layouts, and proofs, as well as final products. A small amount of material pertains to her work designing athletic uniforms, including for the Houston Rockets NBA team, the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and costumes for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Ishioka's decades-long career in advertising is well-represented in this collection through numerous posters, photographs, slides, transparencies, digital, and audiovisual items, primarily for campaigns designed for the Japanese companies Shiseido, Parco, Kadokawa Books, Diana shoes, Kissa, Tokyu, Sanyo Fashion House, and others from the 1960s-1980s.
The collection contains numerous items created while Ishioka was a student at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, including artwork (drawings, sketches, paintings) and production material pertaining to design projects, as well as snapshots of various excursions and activities during this time period. In addition, material documenting her overall career through photographs, portfolios, awards, publicity, and art supplies, is also present. Finally, the collection contains Ishioka's voluminous library of art, design, and other books.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Eiko Ishioka was born on July 12, 1938 in Tokyo, Japan and attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, studying in the Design Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts. She graduated in 1961, and started her career designing advertising campaigns for the Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido. In 1970, Ishioka founded her own design firm and soon diversified her work by adding books and journals (including those published by Kadokawa Books), magazine articles, record album covers, and product packaging to her repertoire, as well as serving as stage director of several Issey Miyake fashion shows. Her firm also created numerous advertising campaigns for major clients such as the department store chain Parco throughout the 1970s.
Ishioka soon branched out into the performing arts, and she spent the last several decades of her career mainly designing costumes and/or sets for theater, film, opera, and individual performers. Some of her major stage credits include the Broadway productions M. Butterfly (1988) and David Copperfield's Dreams & Nightmares (1996); the Nederlander Opera's The Ring of Nibelung (1997-1998); Cirque du Soleil's Varekai (2002); and singer Grace Jones' Hurricane tour (2009). Film credits include production work for Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) and costumes designed for a number of Tarsem (Tarsem Singh) films, as well as for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), which garnered her an Oscar. In addition, Ishioka curated exhibitions, including the photography exhibitions Nuba (1980) and Life (1992) regarding the work of German filmmaker and photographer Leni Riefenstahl, and she contributed to the multi-media art installation Tokyo: Form & Spirit (1986). She also designed sports uniforms for the NBA and Olympic athletes. Along with these various endeavors, Ishioka continued with advertising work, and with book and record cover design, including the Grammy-winning cover of Miles Davis' Tutu (1986). She compiled and designed two books that focused on her career: Eiko by Eiko (1983) and Eiko on Stage (2000).
Eiko Ishioka was married to Nico Soultanakis. She died on January 21, 2012, in Tokyo, Japan.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Nico Soultanakis, 2014-2015.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Melissa Haley with assistance from Neil Hodge, Brian Block, Yuri Shimoda, Joanna Smith, and Carolina Meneses, 2016-2019. Further processing assistance provided by Kuhelika Ghosh and Gaku Uchino. Rehousing and poster processing assistance from Octavio Olvera, 2016-2017. Born-digital material processed by Brian Block, Joanna Smith, as CFPRT Digital Scholars, and Carolina Meneses as Digital Archives Program Intern, 2018-2020.
Most slides, transparencies, negatives, and photographs originally housed in binders and slide file boxes were not rehoused due to the large number of items.
Translations for posters and some other titles originally in Japanese were acquired from a variety of sources, including Eiko by Eiko.
Final processing completed by Kelly Besser and Paola Salazar, 2023.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's library collections and archives.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
Series 1: Early work Series 2: Stage projects Series 3: Moving image projects Series 4: Exhibitions and events Series 5: Fashion and uniforms Series 6: Book Design Series 7: Periodical design Series 8: Record cover design Series 9: Advertising Series 10: Products and packaging Series 11: Audiovisual and born-digital material Series 12: Career Series 13: Personal Series 14: Works by others Series 15: Books from the library of Eiko Ishioka Series 16: Preservation posters
- Physical / technical requirements:
-
CONTAINS DIGITAL, AUDIO, AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital and audiovisual materials. Digital, audio, and audiovisual materials are not currently available for access, unless otherwise noted in a Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital, audio, and audiovisual materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Physical location:
- Portions of the collection stored off-site. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page. Boxes 285-320 (oversize posters), 720, 737-755, and digital materials are stored on-site.
- Physical facet:
- (1 unprocessed DVD, 2 unprocessed 5.25 inch floppy disks)
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Eiko Ishioka papers (Collection 2288). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
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A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988