Views & Reviews Yukiguni / Snow Land Hiroshi Hamaya The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990 Photography

Hiroshi Hamaya 

Yukiguni / Snow Land

Photographs: Hiroshi Hamaya

Text: Keizo Shibusawa, Hiroshi Hamaya

Publisher: Mainichi Shinbunsha

138 pages

Pictures: 129

Year: 1956

Comments: Softcover with slipcase, 300 x 260 mm. The slipcase has some imperfections(wears and tears and colored). The jacket is a a bit used at the spine extremities (see pictures). Inside it's clean with the marks of deep gravure who colored the other pages as always. An attractive copy of this rare complete item.

Hamaya was the first Asian photographer to be inducted into the prestigious Magnum Agency. From about 1939, he came under the influence of ethnologist Keizo Shibusawa. He developed an interest in documenting rapidly disappearing traditional rituals and agricultural life in the countryside. In 1940 he began work on the work that would later appear in Yukiguni (Snow Land) series in rural Niigata prefecture as well as on the Ura Nihon (Japan’s Back Coast) series. In 1955 Hamaya caught the attention of Edward Steichen who included him in the Family of Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was inducted into Magnum in 1960.

Left to right: 'New Year's Visit with Jizo, Kuwadori, Niigata' (1940) and 'Children Singing in a Snow Cave, Tokamachi, Niigata' (1956) | COURTTESY OF THE ESTATE OF HIROSHI HAMAYA, OISO, JAPAN

"From pictorialism to Provoke: the most extensive history of Japanese photobooks ever published" Among others the over 500 pages counting book features such renowned photographers as Yoshio Watanabe, Akira Hoshi, Hayao Yoshikawa, Shinichi Kato, Yasuo Wakuda, Tetsuo Kitahara, Moriyama Daido, Koji Taki, Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Kimura Ihei, Hamaya, Katura, Kazano, Kikuti, Mituzumi, Watanabe, Yamahata, Sozo Okada and Kazano Karuo, among many others. -- "'The Japanese Photobook, 1912–1980' illustrates the development of photography as seen in photo publications in Japan—from the time of influence by European and American pictorialism, the German Bauhaus and Imperial military propaganda, to the complete collapse and destruction of the country in 1945. Then followed a new beginning: with the unique self-determination of a young generation of photographers and visual artists highlighted by the “Provoke” style as well as protest and war documentation of the late 1950s to the early ’70s, the signature Japanese photobook, as we have come to know it, was born.

With detailed information and illustrations of over 400 photo publications, an introduction by Kaneko Ryuichi and essays by Fujimura Satomi, Duncan Forbes, Manfred Heiting, Mitsuda Yuri, Lizawa Kotaro, Shirayama Mari and Matthew S. Witkovsky, this is the first extensive English-language survey of Japanese photobooks of this period." (publisher's note)

Hiroshi Hamaya: images of an inner war

BY JOHN L. TRAN
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

OCT 6, 2015

Most active in the mid-20th century, the photographer Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-99) is best known for his folkloric images of rural life in Niigata Prefecture — images that some consider to be symbolic of his passive resistance to militarism, but for more critical voices are advocacy of a retrograde cultural essentialism.

These issues aside, as historical documents and prime examples of monochrome film photography, Hamaya’s work is invaluable. To commemorate his posthumous 100th birthday, the Setagaya Museum of Art is holding a substantial restrospective, starting in the 1930s and ending in the ’80s.

“Boys Singing Songs to Drive Evil Birds Away,” taken in 1940 and therefore preternaturally loaded with surplus meaning, has become an internationally recognized iconic image of Japanese photography, in part due to its inclusion in Edward Steichen’s 1955 anti-nuclear humanist exhibition “Family of Man.” The night photo with an island of light illuminating a line of boys tramping through deep snow manages to be both hopeful and foreboding at the same time. Hamaya’s day job at that time, like all other professional Japanese photographers who wanted to continue working during World War II, was to contribute to the war effort by producing propaganda.

He photographed tanks and war planes for “Front,” the uncomfortably beautiful magazine promoting the Japanese military, and was initially caught up in the excitement and purpose of the Empire of Japan before becoming disillusioned and finding himself concentrating on the portrayal of traditional communities battling the elements along the coast of the Japan Sea and in snow-bound villages of the northeast.

Hamaya’s retreat from war resulted in a career that can be seen as one of the most powerful photographic eulogies to the idea of Japaneseness. Post hoc judgement of his moral compass, however, is divided. His legacy has been claimed as evidence of the essentially wholesome nature of Japanese culture, or alternatively, as writer Ian Buruma has put it, “chauvinistic ethnography” and a form of internal cultural colonialism.

Despite the playfulness of Hamaya’s works, he became increasingly misanthropic, and this is partly reflected in how women appear in his images. His pre-war Tokyo street photography — less well-known than his “Ura Nihon” (“Japan’s Back Coast”) and “Yukiguni” (“Snow Country”) series — unashamedly delights in the flaneur, capturing cabaret girls, partly undressed and glamorously lit like Hollywood stars, or bob-cut moga (modern girls) and kissing couples caught in the reflected glow of neon signs. It’s the gaze of a young man with a lust for life, the city and subculture. These earlier photos are stylish and brash compared with the images taken during the American Occupation, which sometimes seem furtive and seedy. Here, Hamaya does not so much express his own sexual desire as observe it with moral ambivalence — the cabaret performers are now “pan-pan” girls (the street prostitutes who made a living by hanging around the GIs), and what was once joy in cosmopolitanism and modernity appears to have turned into a suspicion of foreignness.

Women in the “Ura Nihon” and “Yukiguni” series, which were published in the 1950s, are almost all portrayed non-sexually. They are either bundled in thick clothing against the cold, covered in mud from working in the fields, or sitting with their families around hibachi (traditional heaters) as dedicated mothers and wives. As the two series progress through time, female faces appear less and less. In photos from the ’40s, we find close ups of facial expressions, while in most later images women are masked, caught as they look away from the camera or merely distant figures in the landscape.

Hamaya’s work, whatever the tenor or subject, is consistently powerful. The layout and display of the exhibition is extremely neutral — sober frames in a single row with no fancy Christian Boltanski-esque lighting — and Hamaya’s images are gripping from beginning to end. Compared to an exhibition like the Deutsche Bank collection at the Hara Museum, which also opened last month in Tokyo, these medium-sized black-and-white archive prints may seem staid or orthodox; perhaps not immediately appealing to generations that are used to the brightness of backlit screens, or opponents to the idea of a fixed canon of masters and masterpieces. But there are compelling reasons why this exhibition is worth seeing.

Apart from the formal qualities of the artistry, Hamaya reveals so much about Japan besides the narrative he intentionally sought to construct. We can see the playing out of a conflict with modernity and otherness, the ebb and flow of licentiousness and chastity, and behind the facade of realism is a surreal and absurdist gaze.

On top of this is the curious parallel of Hamaya’s documentation of the extensive and violent 1960 Anpo protests and today’s demonstrations against the Abe government. The failure of the Anpo protests to alter the government’s course over the renewal of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with the U.S. resulted in the series “A Record of Rage and Grief” and great bitterness on Hamaya’s part.

He must be turning in his grave right now.

“Hiroshi Hamaya: Photographs 1930s-1960s” at the Setagaya Art Museum runs until Nov. 15; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. ¥1,000. Closed Mon. www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp

'Yaichi Aizu, Poet, Calligrapher and Japanese Art Critic' (1947) | COURTESY OF ESTATE OF HIROSHI HAMAYA, OISO, JAPAN

The Beauty of Lines Collection Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Lausanne’s Musee de l'Elyseeexternal Photography

Straight, curved, abstract – shooting iconic lines
JAN 30, 2018 - 13:36
The Beauty of Lines exhibition at the Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne features 120 photographs from a rich private collection belonging to Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla - widely recognised as one of the world’s top photo collections.

Over the past four decades, the couple has collected over 1,500 original signed prints by some of the greatest photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries which cover the walls of their five-story New York apartment and house in Georgia.

The Lausanne exhibitionexternal link features a cast list of 72 iconic artists, including Robert Doisneau, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Frank and Nan Goldin. This is the first time their collection has been shown in Europe.

“This is not just any old photo collection – it’s one of the top five collections in the world,” Tatyana Franck, director of the Musee de l'Elysee, told reporters on Tuesday. Over 40 days, she and her team were given free rein to create a tailormade exhibition for Lausanne built around the themes of straight lines, curves and abstract images.

“They came up with the theme of line which we'd never thought of. It's totally original. Looking at the collection, we see the photographs totally differently,” Sondra Gilman told swissinfo.ch.

The Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla collection began life back in the 1970s, when Gilman bought three photographs taken by Eugène Atget each costing $250 (CHF233) – a tidy sum at that time.

“My parents told me I was crazy, but I told them I’ve just bought a Rembrandt. That started me on a road on which I’ve never stopped which has given me great joy in life,” she commented.

Shared vision

What is the couple’s shared vision and the underlying principles behind their collecting?  “We buy photos as we love them - it's a heart issue. It's what we agree on,” said Gilman.

But all the photographs must be vintage – that is printed within five years of the image being taken.

“The reason we buy vintage is because we are purists,” she explained. “We want to have the photographers original thought... we are interested in what paper existed at that time and we want it to be a true reflection of the moment when he had the inspiration.”

Out of their entire collection of over 1,500 photographs by 262 different photographers, only two were purchased without their other half seeing it before.

“He's more cerebral and will look at form, etc. But if my stomach doesn't jump then I'm not interested,” said Gilman.

The couple are planning to create a non-profit foundation to oversee their rich collection, which will be run by their son who has inherited their passion for photography.

The Beauty of Lines exhibition at Lausanne’s Musee de l'Elyseeexternal link runs from January 31 – May 6, 2018.

May 17, 2012
Shared Vision: A collection by Celso Gonzalez-Falla and Sondra Gilman. Interview.

The Drummer by Loretta Lux.

I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time.  The place being New York, more specifically Aperture Gallery in New York City, at the time of the Shared Vision collection being shown.  Collectors Celso Gonzalez-Falla and Sondra Gilman have been collecting together for the last 25 years and are ranked among the world’s top ten photography collectors. Their eloquent collection spans over a century and includes some of the most prominent photographers we have known like Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Joel Meyerowitz, Sally Mann and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Their aims for their collection are:

…to acquire works of major importance by leading photographers of their generation and to focus on vintage prints. Although each of the collectors brings a different point of view to the photography—Gonzalez-Falla analyzes color and form, while Gilman responds to images on a more visceral level—these distinct approaches merge into a single, shared vision and emanate from the same goal: to collect photographs that move and inspire them.

From the Introduction, Shared Vision.

With the collection being so extensive the curators (Ben Thompson from Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and Assistant Professor of Photography Paul Karabinis from University of North Florida) had the luxury of selecting iconic images that reflect the diversity of photography over the last century.  The gallery walked us through early 1900’s street scenes, groundbreaking landscapes and the human form and mis-en-scene and narrative based colour photography amongst others.  One section that particularly appealed to me was the area devoted to images of childhood.

The collectors want to collect images that haunt them, that stay with them. Many of their choices have stayed with me too.  The images within this genre of childhood are more than standard pictures of children.  They have a quality which moves you, which says something profound about the nature of childhood, whether it be about innocence and purity (or loss of) or the uncertain ground of adolescence or which simply arouses the maternal yearning to protect and nurture.

Part of the blurb stayed with me too; “Photography portrays idealised versions and realised fears.”  In fact I think this is why photographic images of children have often caused controversy.  The photograph, a supposed record of reality, becomes something other than reality.  It is a polemic of our worst fears and our highest dreams and as such it is a challenge to what is real.  Painting is always removed from a direct link to the real world and as such has got away with a lot of the criticism that photography has had to deal with, like being a legitimate art form or having a reputation as a document and no more.  For me this was the most exciting thing about Shared Vision, the celebration of the photograph as art.  That and the exquisite aesthetic and intelligent cohesiveness.

Image by Andrea Modica.

Sharon Boothroyd: When and why did you first begin collecting photography?

Sondra: I started collecting photography about 35 years ago, after I saw the first Atget show at the Museum of Modern Art.  I had an epiphany.  I spent three days on the floor of John Szarkowski’s office, (the renown curator) and said “Tell me about photography.”  He did and I bought three photographs. This led to the start of my collection, as well as the collection of Gilman Paper Company. The Gilman Paper Collection is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Celso: Before I met Sondra I did not collect, I took photographs; in Cuba, of cattle and horses my father sold to South America, after for my University’s newspaper in Havana, and afterwards in Texas of my Arabian horses.  I have collected with Sondra for the last 25 years, and the first photo we bought together was Mapplethorpe’s Bill T. Jones.

Sondra: We believe in photography as an art form.  But we only buy what we love.  We don’t have an outside curator or consultant.  We look, look and look and then we both decide which image to acquire. Although each one of us has a veto power on the other we rarely have to use it.

What interests you most about images of children and why did you decide to make part of your collection solely dedicated to this subject?

Sondra: In our collection we have photos of children, but we don’t limit our collection to one subject matter.  We acquire the images that move us; that we can’t forget. We have photos of children by diverse photographers, like Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Andrea Modica, Loretta Lux, Emmet Gowin, Bruce Davidson, Nick Wapligton, Giacomelli, Eugene Meatyard, Cravo Neto, Flor Garduno, Wynn Bullock, Clark and Pognaud, Rineka Dijkstra, Misrach and Julie Blackmon.

Celso: A few of these artists only concentrated on children: Levitt, Mann, Modica, and Lux.  Others included children, but did not specialize in “children’s images” like Gowin, with his wife and child; Davidson, with 110 Street and the gang, Bullock, his nude daughter resting on the ground of a primeval forest; W. Eugene Smith, his children walking hand in hand; Meatyard, children playing with masks; Giacomelli, a child as the center of a group in his Scano series.

Levitt, because her images are the best example of street photography covering children at play.  Andrea Modica, because she followed a child and covered her life and there is an intimacy that cannot be obtained if it was “street photography”. Loretta Lux, because her images are remarkable; as her children look “different”, they have lost their “innocence”, they are attractive, hermetic, and full of a mysterious quality that would be lost in a “candid photo”.

In the case of Sally Mann, because her children are in their “natural state”: “Nudity equals innocence”.  There is no prurient motive.  She shows how her children lived, played, and moved. In some images, like “Candy Cigarette”, there is a hint of “grown up posing”, as if the child wanted to show that she could be a “glamour girl” and not a young child playing with her sisters.  The images are beautiful, innocent, and they talk to you.  You become a part of their exclusive “clan”; you are invited to become a visitor in their farm.

Julie Blackmon, because of her large family in a suburban setting, they are as highly posed as a “Norman Rockwell” cover for the Saturday Evening Post.

Of all the images you have collected for this section which ones have impacted you most and why?

Sondra and Celso: We love all of our pictures, but we have pieces that haunt you:  “Virginia at Four”, and “Candy Cigarette” (see below). Virginia, because the way she stands: peacefully, confidently, unaware of what other people are going to say. She is looking at her mother and trusting her.  In the “Candy Cigarette” Sally’s oldest daughter, Jessie, is playing it out, but we know it is not true, as the cigarette is chocolate.  There is also an image of Helen Levitt that we love. A girl with two bottles of milk with happiness reflected in her face as she passes a young pregnant girl, showing disdain. The expression on the girl carrying the milk bottles is reminiscent of Cartier Bresson’s “Rue Mouffetard”: of the young boy and his two bottles of wine.

Image by Helen Levitt.

How do you think childhood photography has moved forward in recent years?

Sondra: I think there is more interest in children and family dynamics. I have recently seen this development at art fairs.

Celso: I don’t know if there is any real change.  Maybe you have more images taken of the family, but they are less controversial.

What do you observe are the biggest issues facing photographers making images of children in today’s society?

Sondra: I think the fine line separating the so called “exploitation” of children may have affected some photographers and they have gone into more of the psychological or mental exploration of a child’s being; Loretta Lux, with the secrets her children hold, Andrea Modica, with her teenage friendships and again Julie Blackmon, with her recreation of the humor and humanity of family life.

Celso: I don’t see issues.  I only see that the photographer has to be able to find his “theme”, his or her “vision”. If not the images will be another set of snapshots of family members.

What are your hopes for the future of childhood photography?

Sondra: The scope of childhood is huge, and there can be many new ways of seeing and interpreting this.  The photographer, as artist, has the challenge to fill in the blanks.

Celso: That the photographers continue to take risks developing their own particular style, and be able to communicate how they see “childhood”. If they show areas of danger, abuse and exploitation of children those images should create awareness of the problems and ask for change. Lewis Hine did it before. His images eliminated child labor in the United States.

Candy Cigarette, 1989 by Sally Mann.

Samba Samba Brasil Jun Miki Une Bibliothèque Irene Attinger Photography

Jun MIKI "Samba Samba Brazil" 1967 Photobook
Jun MIKI, photographer. "Sanba Sanba Burajiru" - Samba Samba Brasil" - "Samba Samba Brazil." Japan: Kenkosha, 1967, First Edition, HB, 36 cm x 27 cm, approx. 130pp, color & b/w gravure photos, text in Japanese, English and Portuguese including a page of essay by the photographer.

une bibliothèque - Maison européenne de la photographie
Attinger, Irene
ISBN 10: 2330075197 / ISBN 13: 9782330075194

Dans le prolongement de l'ouvrage "Une Collection", publié en 2015 et devenu collector, cette nouvelle publication invite ceux qui aiment les livres à découvrir l'exceptionnelle collection de livres de photographie appartenant à la Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Les cent livres présentés dans cette édition sont choisis parmi les 32 000 références de la bibliothèque de la MEP qui en font la bibliothèque de photographie la plus grande d'Europe et témoignent ainsi de l'importance du livre dans l'histoire de la photographie. L'ouvrage est une sélection de livres d'auteurs, choisis tant pour leur qualité éditoriale qu'artistique, révélant un rapport particulier entre l'oeuvre photographique et l'objet livre. - Nombre de page(s) : 240 - Poids : 1582g

Jun MIKI was one of Japan's pioneers in photojournalism, the first Japanese photographer to publish in Life Magazine. Despite only publishing this one masterpiece of a photobook, Miki is held in only slightly less regard than the Japanese King of photojournalism, Ken Domon. Indeed, this book is published by the same publisher as Domon's landmark Hiroshima and the lavish construction of this book mimics that one - same size, same quality printing materials. The Miki Jun Award was established in 1999 to remember his legacy.

Chapters: 1) Brasilia, 2) Cristalina, 3) Ouro Preto, 4) Women in Rio de Janeiro, 5) Modern Industry, 6) The Xavantes Tribe in Amazonia, 7) Japanese in Sao Paulo, 8) Copacabana & Ipanema, 9) Carnival. The "Brasilia" chapter is a fascinating look at the city as it was being created and the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. "Cristalina" visits a mining region and one thinks of Domon's masterpiece Chikuho no Kodomotachi. Though published in 1967 the photographs were taken during visits in 1958 and 1960 so the connections to Domon's greatest photobooks are closer than one might think. This photobook is destined to be included in future references whether that is a future volume of Parr and Badger or someone else - eventually someone will have to take notice of the second great representative of Japanese photojournalism.

"Reproductions of Miki's photographs of Rio and Brazil in the late sixties - the architecture, the people, the women, printed in rich gravure. This is the only large-format book Miki Jun published in his life-time. The dark photogravures are a superb record of Brazil in the 60s, capturing the amazing energy and the optimism of the period. Parts of the new capital of Brazilia had just been built by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa and their grand architectural vision is documented in a series of impressive black-white images. Kenko-sha's gravure printing is among the best ever!."--Photo-eye