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Eiko Yamazawa: What I Am Doing

Nov. 12, 2019—Jan. 26, 2020

• Nov. 12, 2019—Jan. 26, 2020
• Closed Mondays (except when Monday falls on a holiday, in which case the museum is open and closed the following day), and Dec.29-Jan.1　* Open 10:00 to 18:00 on January 2nd and 3rd.
• Admission：Adults ￥700(560)／College Students ￥600(480)／High School and Junior High School Students, Over 65 ￥500(400). * Prices in parenthesis apply to groups of 20 or more, admission is free for grade school children or younger; junior high school students living or attending schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area, holders of Japan’s disability identification cards (shogaisha techo) together with one caregiver, and holders of the museum’s annual passport together with one accompanying person. *Those aged 65 or over are admitted free on the third Wednesday of each month.*Free on January 2nd and 3rd. * Multiple discounts do not apply.

Eiko Yamazawa, who was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1899, studied photography in the United States in the 1920s and embarked on a more than 50-year career as one of the country’s first women photographers in the 1930s. After initially working predominantly with portraiture, she became known as an artist who made photographic works resembling abstract paintings late in her career, in the 1980s. Her vibrant color photographs, in particular, were unlike anything in Japan at the time. Presented under the title 〈What I Am Doing〉, this series of work includes highly conceptual pieces in which she has photographed her photography supplies and her own work from the past. Yamazawa arrived at such unique artistic expressions after engaging in ceaseless formal experimentation through her photography beginning in the 1950s. This exhibition was organized to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Yamazawa’s birth in collaboration with the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. Featuring 140 works, including color and monochrome pieces from Yamazawa’s abstract photography series 〈What I Am Doing〉 from the 1970s and 1980s, her early work with abstraction from photo books from the 1960s, and portraits and other related materials from before World War II, this exhibition traces the steps of the photographer who continued to create work on a different plane from the mainstream of Japanese photography. Yamazawa’s works will be joined by works from the TOP collection by photographers active in the United States in the 1920s, when she was studying there. Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ralph Steiner, and fashion and advertising photography by Cecil Beaton, John Rawlings, and Paul Outerbridge are present to explore the influences on Yamazawa of the photography she experienced in the United States in the 1920s. We hope you will enjoy exploring this exhibition.


《Consuelo Kanaga (Photographer)》  1955    Gelatin silver print    Tokyo Photographic Art Museum


《Yasue Yamamoto ”The Soil”》 1943,printed 1990 Gelatin silver print


《Still Life》〈Far and Near〉 1961   Offset print


《Help! 》〈Far and Near〉 1958   Rotogravure


《Sunday Afternoon》〈Far and Near〉 1955   Rotogravure 


《Citizen of Tomorrow》〈Far and Near〉 1960   Rotogravure


《What I Am Doing No. 8》 1980, printed 1986    Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome)    Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka

Eiko Yamazawa (1899–1995) 　
Born in Osaka, Japan. Graduated from the nihonga (Japanese-style painting) department at the Private Women’s School of Fine Arts in 1918. Traveled to the United States in 1926 and studied oil painting at the California School of Fine Arts. Learned photography by working as an assistant to the American photographer Consuelo Kanaga at the same time. Returned to Japan in 1929. Began working as a portrait photographer after opening her own photography studio in Osaka in 1931. Produced advertising photography for businesses after World War II. Began making abstract photography. Moved to Kobe in 1968. Held numerous solo exhibitions titled ‘What I Am Doing’ during the 1970s and 1980s. Received the Osaka Prefecture Art Award in 1955, the Photographic Society of Japan’s Distinguished Contributions Award in 1977, and the Kobe City Cultural Prize in 1980. Her work is in the collections of the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka; Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; and Kawasaki City Museum.

□Organized by Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture
□Special Thanks by the Nakanoshima Museum of Art,  The Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City

This exhibition is jointly organized with Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City.
The Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City
May 25, 2019 - July 28, 2019

You can use the "Grutto Pass 2019" for this exhibition.