The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts, and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.
The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) is a museum of footwear and calceology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum's building is situated near the northwest of the University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The 3,665-square-metre (39,450 sq ft) museum building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with Raymond Moriyama as the lead architect.
The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 52nd–most visited art museum in the world as of 2019.
Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" city, and has been called "one of the world's most innovative and influential architects."
Sir Michael Craig-Martin is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.
Nicholas David Gordon Knight OBE is a British fashion photographer and founder and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is an honorary professor at University of the Arts London and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the same university. He has produced books of his work including retrospectives Nicknight (1994) and Nick Knight (2009). In 2016, Knight's 1992 campaign photograph for fashion brand Jil Sander was sold by Phillips auction house at the record-breaking price of HKD 2,360,000.
The Tokyo National Museum or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, is the largest art museum in Japan, and is one of the largest art museums in the world. The museum collects, preserves, and displays a comprehensive collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, with a focus on ancient and medieval Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. There is also a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art. The museum holds over 110,000 Cultural Properties, including 89 National Treasures of Japan, 319 Horyuji Treasures, and 644 Important Cultural Properties. In addition, the museum houses over 3000 Cultural Properties deposited by individuals and organizations, including 55 national treasures and 253 important cultural properties. The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection.
Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, England, on the south bank of the River Thames.
Guy Bourdin, was a French artist and fashion photographer known for his provocative images. From 1955, Bourdin worked mostly with Vogue as well as other publications including Harper's Bazaar. He shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Charles Jourdan, Pentax and Bloomingdale's.
Roger Henri Vivier was a French fashion designer who specialized in shoes. His best-known creation was the stiletto heel.
Dhruva Mistry is an Indian sculptor.
Michael Kenna is an English photographer best known for his unusual black and white landscapes featuring ethereal light achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with exposures of up to 10 hours. His photos concentrate on the interaction between ephemeral atmospheric condition of the natural landscape, and human-made structures and sculptural mass.
Ikko Tanaka was a Japanese graphic designer.
Miyako Ishiuchi, is a Japanese photographer.
Hiromi Marissa Ozaki, better known by the pseudonym Sputniko!, is a British/Japanese artist and designer who specializes in the field of speculative and critical design. After majoring in BSc Mathematics and Computer Science at Imperial College, London, she went on to pursue a master's degree in design at the Royal College of Art. Sputniko! is known for her film and multi-media installation works inspired by how technology impacts society and people's values – in particular focusing on gender issues. She has recently presented her works in exhibitions such as the 2019 Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, 'Japanorama' in Pompidou Centre-Metz, Setouchi Art Trienniale, New Sensorium at the ZKM Art Center in Germany (2016), Future and the Arts at the Mori Art Museum (2016), Collecting Future Japan – Neo Nipponica at the Victoria & Albert Museum (2016). From 2013 to 2017, Sputniko! was an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab where she found and directed the Design Fiction research group. To date, she has had pieces included in the permanent collections of museums such as the V&A and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Currently, she resides as the associate professor of RCA-IIS Design Lab in the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo as well as associate professor of the Department of Design at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Karin Larsson, née Bergöö, was a Swedish artist and designer who collaborated with her husband, Carl Larsson, as well as being often depicted in his paintings.
Sophia Grace Webster is a British shoe and accessories designer who launched her eponymous footwear line in September 2012. She is renowned for a feminine, bold yet playful design approach which has led to distribution at over 200 retailers worldwide.
Lionel Ernest Bussey was a British mechanical and electrical engineer who amassed a collection of about 600 pairs of women's shoes. All were unworn, and many still unopened in their boxes with receipts. On his death he bequeathed his collection to "a likely museum or museums" and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London accepted 50 pairs, with others going to the Northampton Museum and the Brooklyn Museum.
Nendo is a Japanese design firm founded in 2002 by Oki Sato, that works on design projects globally. The first office was situated in Tokyo. In 2005, the second office was established in Milan. The company works with numerous brands and have won multiple awards over the course of 17 years of establishment. Nendo is known for its simple and minimalist design with subtle influences from Japanese, and Scandinavian aesthetics. Currently the positions for CEO, COO and CFO are occupied by Sato Oki, Ito Akihiro, and Hama Takaaki, respectively.
