(March 26, 1908 - July 7, 1957) was one of the most prominent

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

s in the first half of the 20th century. He was born in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

and became a member of the

Naniwa Photography Club The Naniwa Photography Club (浪華写真倶楽部) is an avant-garde amateur photography club that was established with the support of the Kuwata Photographic Materials company in 1904 in Osaka. It is the oldest amateur photography club in Japan. ...

in 1928. In 1933 he published the monograph ''Shoka Shinkei'' (初夏神経, "Early Summer Nerves"), one of the most important works for Japanese modernist photography (''Shinkō Shashin'', 新興写真). In this work, he used many photographic techniques such as

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...

and

photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...

s and succeeded in creating surrealistic images. Although Koishi's unconventional style reached a large audience through ''Shoka Shinkei'', it was not without criticisms. Notably, the reception of his monograph was markedly different in Tokyo. They were criticized as being "abstract, self-righteous, and lacking in reality". At the time the Tokyo photography scene was fixated on a more journalistic documentary style of photography with a focus on social issues. From 1938, he worked for the Japanese government in the magazine ''Shashin Shūhō'' (写真週報, "Photo Weekly"). And he became a

war photographer ''War Photographer'' is a documentary by Christian Frei about the photographer James Nachtwey. As well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography, the film addresses the broader scope of ideas common to all those in ...

of the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. Therefore, he was no longer able to produce avant-garde photo. After World War II, he continued to take many photographs. However, he could not leave the works from the effects of restricted activity due to the war. In 1957, Koishi died by accident fall on the station platform in Moji,

Fukuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders S ...

(present Moji-ku, Kitakyushu) .

Exhibition in Japan

*Kiyoshi Koishi and Naniwa Shashin Club (小石清と浪華写真倶楽部展) at Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art (兵庫県立近代美術館) and Seibu Contemporary Art Gallery (西武百貨店コンテンポラリーアートギャラリー), 1988

References and further reading

* Kaneko Ryūichi. ''Modern Photography in Japan 1915-1940.'' San Francisco: Friends of Photography, 2001. * Koishi Kiyoshi. ''Shoka Shinkei'' (初夏神経, Early Summer Nerves, 1933. Republished by Kokushokankōkai in 2005 with short English commentary. * Exhibition Catalogue for "Kiyoshi Koishi and Naniwa Shashin Club" (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and Seibu Contemporary Art Gallery, 1988) (no ISBN) * ''Koishi Kiyoshi to zen'ei shashin'' (小石清と前衛写真, "Kiyoshi Koishi and avant-garde photography"). Nihon no Shashinka (日本の写真家), vol. 15. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1999. *Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. ''The History of Japanese Photography.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koishi Kiyoshi 1908 births 1957 deaths Japanese photographers People from Osaka Accidental deaths in Japan

Exhibition in Japan

References and further reading

See also

References