Exhibition of Japanese Photography: Catalogue. Выставка японской фотографии

[Rostov-on-Don], Rostov-on-Don salon of photography, 1989. Compiled by B. Bykov.
8vo. [32] pp., ill.

The first Russian exhibition catalogue devoted to Japanese photography — and the only one ever published, issued by a provincial press.

In contrast to Japanese woodcuts and paintings, which were studied far more thoroughly by Soviet art critics and historians, Japanese photography remained largely unknown to the general public throughout the Soviet period. The only publication to cover it with any regularity was the magazine "Sovetskoe Foto" ("Soviet Photo"), which carried close to 40 items between 1928 and 1993 — articles on camera technology, passing mentions of photographers, individual images, and short interviews. The sole article given over entirely to the subject was a translated piece, "The First Photographers in Japan", published in 1970; it underscored the absence of any specialist in Japanese photography within the USSR.

Exhibitions fared no better. In 1929 the newspaper "Asahi" sent photographs to the USSR for an exhibition that was never displayed. After the Second World War, Japanese photographers took part in international exhibitions held in the USSR and in thematic exhibitions on Japan where photography appeared alongside other material. Only two exhibitions were devoted to Japanese photography alone: "Japan in Photographs" in 1958, and this one, in Rostov-on-Don in 1989 — the only one of the two for which a catalogue was published.

The exhibition presented work by twenty photographers from the Tokyo photo club Arc-en-Ciel, led by Nakai Masami (中居正躬; 1904-?), a member of the Royal Photographic Society and an honorary member of FIAP, who from 1966 to 1984 lectured on colour theory and specialised techniques at the Japan College of Photography. The catalogue reproduces one photograph by each participant, accompanied by their portrait, and closes with a list of all 134 works shown — among them posterisations, solarisations and montages.

Binding & condition

Original pictorial wrappers, issued without a title. Good: light rubbing and soiling to the wrappers.

Rarity

No copy traced on OCLC.