Vintage 1969 Olivetti Underwood Calendar Celebrating Japanese "Nanban" Art Works

Description

This is a wonderful calendar from Olivetti the Italian company famous for its typewriters. They used to publish a yearly calendar celebrating various styles of art and artists. Their chief designer during the 1950's/60's was Marcello Nizzoli  who was famous for designing the original Olivetti 22 as well as the calendars during these years. 1969 was the last calendar he ever designed as he died later that year. "Nanban" includes all the art works showing the influence of Western culture from the time of the Europeans' first landing in Japan (around 1550 or so) through the first half of the 17th century. In this calendar the local Japanese artists painted on screens showing the dress and ways of the foreigners.  In Japanese "Nanban" means barbarians of the south which is how most of the trading ships approached Japan. The artwork of this calendar helps to depict all of this in a very historical fashion with lovely colorful illustrations. Olivetti was renowned for being an excellent company who treated their employees with fairness and abundance in many ways. This yearly calendar is just one of the many ways they demonstrated their caring attitude towards their employees as well as their customers.