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 language, 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 photographe ...

s in the first half of the 20th century in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. As an amateur photographer, he was very energetic in photography groups, such as

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. ...

(, ''Naniwa Shashin Kurabu'') and

Tampei Photography Club The was a group based in Osaka from 1930 until 1941 that promoted avant-garde and, toward the end, socially concerned photography. The group was founded around the photographer Bizan Ueda, among photographers who bought their supplies from the T ...

. In 1937, he founded Avant-Garde Image Group (Avant-Garde Zoei Shūdan, ) with Gingo Hanawa (1894–1957, ),

Yoshio Tarui was a Japanese 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 ...

and Kōrō Honjō. He was good at extremely imaginative, illusionary and surrealistic photography, perfectly using photomontages and color painting on prints. His works such as "Fantasies of the Moon" (, 1938), "Mode" (1938, , ''Mōdo'') and "Life" (1938, , ''Seimei'') are unique and among the most important works for the history of Japanese photography before World War II.

References

* Kaneko Ryūichi. ''Modern Photography in Japan 1915-1940.'' San Francisco: Friends of Photography, 2001. *Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. ''The History of Japanese Photography.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. * Exhibition Catalogue for ''The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan'' (), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (), 1995 (no ISBN). This catalogue reproduces "Fantasies of the Moon", "Mode" and "Life". * ''Kiyoshi Koishi and avant-garde photography'' () Nihon no shashinka (, "Japanese Photographers"), volume 15. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999. 1900 births 1970 deaths Japanese photographers People from Osaka Prefecture {{Japan-photographer-stub