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Eikoh Hosoe細江英公

After being inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata’s performance ‘Forbidden Colours’ in 1959, Eikoh Hosoe began taking photographs of Hijikata and other dancers around him before the word ‘butoh’ even existed. He has left a great many powerful images, which are by all means butoh in photographic form. In 1960 he directed a short experimental film ‘Navel and A-Bomb’ featuring Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno. Several of Kazuo Ohno’s posters, including posters for ‘Admiring La Argentina’, ‘My Mother’ and ‘Water Lilies’ feature Hosoe’s photographs. In 2006 on the occasion of Kazuo Ohno’s 100th birthday, he dedicated a book of photographs to Kazuo Ohno titled ‘The Butterly Dream’ - a compilation of over 40 years of their collaboration together.

Basic Information

ID
PER4
Born
18 March 1933  Yonezawa, Yamagata, Japan
Profession(s)
Photographer
Nationality
Japanese

Short Biography

1948 Purchased his first camera

1949 Went to study at the Tokyo Metropolitan Sumidagawa High School, where he joined the English and Photography clubs

1951 Won top prize in the Fuji Photo Contest for Students

1952 Began interacting with members of the avant-garde artist group Demokrato (Democratic Artists Association) and other young artists

1954 Graduated in Photography from the Tokyo Junior College of Photography (now Tokyo Polytechnic University)

1956 First solo exhibition ‘An American Girl in Tokyo’ at the Konishiroku Photo Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo

1960 Solo exhibition ‘Man and Woman’, in which the subjects of works included Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno (Konishiroku Photo Gallery, Ginza, Tokyo)

   Wrote and directed ‘Navel and A-Bomb’ in Oharacho, Chiba prefecture

1961 Begins a series of photo sessions with Yukio Mishima over six months from September, which are published in 1963 in ‘Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses’. Yoshito Ohno also takes part in the shoot.

1965 Began taking trips to Akita with Tatsumi Hijikata for photo sessions, which continued intermittently until the publication of ‘Kamaitachi’ in 1969.

   Directed the ‘Judo’ and ‘Modern Pentathlon’ scenes in Kon Ichikawa’s documentary film ‘Tokyo Olympiad’.

1975 Appointed professor at the Tokyo Junior College of Photography (now Tokyo Polytechnic University). Instrumental in establishing the Shadai Gallery

1978 Visited Joan Miró in Mallorca

1982 ‘Navel and A-Bomb’ appears in Donald Richie’s ‘Japanese Experimental Film: 1960-1980’ exhibition, and tours across 60 locations in the US

1994 Appointed professor at the Faculty of Arts, Tokyo Polytechnic University

1995 Appointed first director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts

1997 Hosoe’s photographs are published in ‘Kazuo Ohno’ (Soshi Seijusha)

1998 Photographs Kazuo Ohno performing with projections of Shōhaku Shoga’s paintings at “Kazuo Ohno Dances Shōhaku” (Chiba City Museum of Art)

2000 Exhibits the ‘Luna Rossa Photo Festival’ at Yotsuya 3-Chome, in which Kazuo Ohno also performs on the street.

2006 Publication of ‘The Butterfly Dream’ (Seigensha)

Awards

1951 Top prize for the Fuji Photo Contest for Students

1960 Japan Photo Critics Association Newcomer’s Award, Fuji Photo Contest Artist of the Year Award

1963 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Photographic Society of Japan for ‘Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses’

1970 Awarded the Minister of Education's Art Encouragement Prize for ‘Kamaitachi’

1982 Paris Award

1983 Honorary award from Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles

1994 Photographic Society of Japan Award of the Year (for 1993)

1998 Medal of Honor with a Purple Ribbon

2003 Special 150th Anniversary Medal by the Royal Photographic Society

2006 First Japanese person to be awarded a Lucie Award

2007 The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

2010 Cultural Achievement Award

2017 The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star

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