Marvelous Tales of Black Ink by Nobuyoshi Araki, 2014 edition of 1000

Marvelous Tales of Black Ink is a rare, late-period meditation by Nobuyoshi Araki—less scandalous, more elemental. Published in 2014 by MÖREL in a limited edition of 1000, the book presents a sequence of brush drawings that merge calligraphy, eroticism, and mourning into a haunted graphic language. Here, Araki abandons the camera for ink, using sumi to gesture toward his own mortality, loss, and obsession with the female form.

The drawings are immediate and fluid—women’s bodies collapse into brushstrokes, genitals dissolve into gesture, and black pools of ink seem to hover between orgasm and elegy. These are not illustrations or studies, but ritual marks: a mourning process on paper, rendered with Araki’s unmistakable emotional voltage. The artist’s wife Yoko had died decades earlier, and the specter of absence runs through each page.

Accompanied by a brief text from Simon Baker and published in London with support from Imitate Modern, the book feels like a quiet howl—elegant, confrontational, and deeply personal. In Darwin’s archive, this is a vital Araki object: post-photographic, ritualistic, and ink-black with feeling.

Technical Sheet
Title: Marvelous Tales of Black Ink
Artist / Author: Nobuyoshi Araki
Date: 2014
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Softcover with dust jacket
Dimensions (cm): approx. 21 × 26
Language: English
Pages: Not stated
Publisher / Editor: MÖREL, London
ISBN: 978-1-907071-44-7
Edition: 1000 copies
Condition: Near fine