Book review: Tucker, A., Iizawa, K. and Kinoshita, N. (2003). The history of Japanese photography. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Image from:  http://photographybooksforsale.blogspot.ae/

This volume was produced as part of a 2003 exhibit of 207 images curated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.  The book runs to just over 400 pages and includes 356 color illustrations.  Text is provided by six authors, beginning with an overview of scholarship in Japanese photography by Tucker, who organized 40 major exhibits as curator at the Houston museum.  She has also authored studies on female photographers, Brassai, and Korean photography. The remaining six essays are from five Japanese scholars, and a sixth from another American curator.

1. Anne Wilkes Tucker:  Introduction
2. Kinoshita Naoyuki:  The Early Years of Japanese Photography
3. Kaneko Ryuichi:  The Origins and Development of Japanese Art Photography
4. Takeba Joe:  The Age of Modernism:  From Visualization to Socialization
5. Kaneko Ryuichi:  Realism and Propaganda
6. Iizawa Kotaro:  The Evolution of Postwar Photography
7. Dana Friis-Hansen:  Internationalization, Individualism, and the Institutionalization of Photography

The book also includes an Exhibition checklist, a 17-page Chronology, 42-pages of Artist and Magazine Profiles, and what seems like (in light of the extensive material in other sections) an abbreviated bibliography of only four pages.  

Published in 2003, there is no mention of the sweeping effects of digital image making and distribution, but this project otherwise presents an engaging collection of text and image exploring 150 years of photographic history on the Japanese archipelago.  Essays on the earlier material, up through the 1960s and 70s, are strongest.  Those on the contemporary scene read more like encyclopedia entries of major artists and projects.  Perhaps as we get to closer in time to our subject, the more difficult it is to discern patterns. I was somewhat disappointed at the small number of war propaganda images relative to the size of selections for other periods, which feature a generous helping of full page images in both color and black and white.

This is a large, weighty, coffee-table sized book, not something you can carry on the train or to the doctor’s office.  Design is simple and striking, paper stock and printing are high quality, and after one read through all 400 pages the paperback binding remained intact.  A hardcover version was also produced.  I found a new copy from an online used book dealer for US$45.00.  

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