Colophon (part 1)

Colophon (Part 1), dated July 1957, takes its title from the traditional publishing term for the page at the end of a book that contains production details: printer, date, edition size, and other technical information. By elevating this functional element to the status of an artwork, Amano collapses the distinction between the administrative apparatus of printmaking and its creative output.

This ink-on-paper woodblock print belongs to the same 1957 publication series as several other numbered parts in Amano's catalog. The colophon format gave Amano license to incorporate typographic and textual elements alongside visual marks, blending the semantic content of words with the abstract qualities of printed forms. Working in monochrome ink, Amano treats the information-bearing function of the colophon as raw material for visual composition, arranging text and image according to aesthetic rather than purely informational logic.