The history of Japanese photography is as long and rich as the medium itself, and offers the opportunity to study technical innovation and avant-garde theory alongside issues of memory, gender, and national and personal identity. The format of the photobook in Japan is especially important as a vehicle for experimental design, for collaborative expression, and for new ideas about the relationship between viewer and image. The NYPL Photography Collection contains a world-class holdings of Japanese photography, allowing for a deep, sustained survey of some of the most important and influential Japanese photobooks from the 20th century. 

Join art librarian Chantal Lee and Assistant Curator of Photography Maggie Mustard as we study Japanese photography and photobooks from the 1930s to the present moment, including Horino Masao’s Kamera : me x tetsu, kosei (Camera, Eye x Steel, Construction) (1931), Ishimoto Yasuhiro’s Katsura (1960), Kawada Kikuji’s Chizu (The Map) (1965), the avant-garde photo-magazine PROVOKE (1968-69), Araki Nobuyoshi’s Sentimental Journey (1971), and work by Domon Ken, Ishiuchi Miyako, Kanemura Osamu, and Okabe Momo, among others.  

Image: Osamu Kanemura, Radical Hybrid, 2019. Photo taken by Christian Erroi.