Yasuhiro Ishimoto

was a Japanese-American photographer.

Biography

Ishimoto was born on June 14, 1921 in San Francisco, California, where his parents were farmers. In 1924, the family left the United States and returned to his parents' hometown within present-day Tosa, in Kōchi Prefecture, Japan. After Ishimoto graduated from Kōchi Agricultural High School, he returned to the United States in 1939, to study modern agricultural methods. He initially lived with a Japanese family friend in California, but later relocated to the city of Oakland to the home of an American family.

He spent summers working as a farmer until 1941, and between September and December of that year, studied at San Jose Junior College (now San Jose City College). In January 1942, he entered the University of California, Berekley, School of Agriculture (now the University of California, Davis), but soon thereafter was sent to a Japanese American internment camp due to Executive Order 9066. In September, he was transferred to the Amache Internment Camp (also known as Granada Relocation Center) in Colorado, where he was interned with fellow Japanese Americans, from whom he learned photographic techniques, after regulations on using cameras were relaxed around 1943. In January 1944, he temporarily left the camp and visited Illinois. In December of that year, although the war continued, he was released from camp and relocated to Chicago. In 1946, he entered Northwestern University in Chicago to study architecture, but soon dropped out. Though he did not complete this program, architecture would hold an important place in his photography. In 1947, Ishimoto joined the Fort Dearborn Camera Club for amateur filmmakers and photographers there. In 1948, he enrolled in the Institute of Design (ID), which came to be the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology the following year in 1949. There he studied with Harry M. Callahan and Aaron Siskind, graduating in 1952. During this time, he won numerous photography awards, including the Moholy-Nagy Prize, which he won twice.

Ishimoto returned to Japan to live in 1953 and that same year, on a commission from New York's Museum of Modern Art, he photographed Katsura Imperial Villa (Katsura rikyū) in Kyoto, working in black-and-white. Work from this assignment eventually was published as the book, ''Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture'' (sometimes shortened to ''Katsura'') in 1960. The book has texts by Walter Gropius and Tange Kenzō.

Ishimoto's work was chosen by Edward Steichen to appear in the '' Family of Man'' exhibition and catalogue at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955, and Steichen also selected his work for a three-person exhibition in 1961.

From 1958 to 1961, Ishimoto lived and worked in Chicago on a Minolta fellowship. His photographs from this time, mostly street scenes, were eventually published in 1969 as ''Chicago, Chicago''. After having returned to Japan in 1961, Ishimoto became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1969. During the 1960s, he taught photography at Kuwasawa Design School, the Tokyo College of Photography and, between 1966 and 1971, at Tokyo Zokei University. Tokuko Ushioda was one of his students.

Ishimoto travelled and photograph widely, visiting Southwest Asia in 1966, and South America, North Africa and Australia for three months in 1975. The following year he made trips to Iran, Iraq and Turkey and in 1977 he again visited Turkey, also travelling to Spain and India. He visited China in 1978.

With photographs taken at the temple Tō-ji (also known as Kyōō Gokokuji) in Kyoto, Ishimoto produced an exhibition in 1977 called ''Den Shingonin Ryōkai Mandala'' (The Mandalas of the Two Worlds). His photography was later used in a very lavish publication of the same title.

Between 1973 and 1993 Ishimoto produced a number of in-camera color abstractions that appeared as covers for the Japanese magazine ''Approach''. In 1980, at the Museum of Modern Art, he photographed Monet's ''Water Lilies'' in detail and full size.

Ishimoto returned to Katsura in 1982 and took another series of photographs, this time with many in color, often using the same or very similar views to those of his 1953 photographs at the same location. Work from this project was published in ''Katsura Villa: Space and Form''.

His more recent photography dealt with the transitory nature of life as shown in his photographs of clouds, footprints in melting snow and fallen leaves. This theme was also evident in his photographs of Ise Shrine (also known as Ise Jingū), which he was permitted to photograph in 1993. This ancient Shinto shrine is torn down and rebuilt every twenty years.

Ishimoto participated in many exhibitions, including ''New Japanese Photography'' at the Museum of Modern Art in 1974, solo shows in 1960 and 1999 at the Art Institute of Chicago, a retrospective in 1989–1990 at Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo, and an exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, in 1996.

Ishimoto's many awards include winning the ''Young Photographer's Contest'', ''Life'' magazine (1950); the photographer of the year award, '' Japan Photo Critics Association'' (1957); the Mainichi Art Award (1970); the annual award (1978, 1990) and distinguished contribution award (1991) of the '' Photographic Society of Japan''; and governmental medals of honour (1983, 1993). In 1996 the Japanese government named Ishimoto a Person of Cultural Merit, an honour that includes a lifelong stipend. In 2004 Ishimoto donated his archive of seven thousand images, valued at 1.4 billion yen, to the Museum of Art, Kochi.
In English, Yasuhiro Ishimoto signed his name "Yas Ishimoto" (see examples).

Ishimoto died at the age of 90 on February 6, 2012, after being hospitalized the month before for a stroke.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* Art Institute of Chicago, 1960
*Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1961
*''Den Shingonin Ryōkai Mandala'' / ''Mandala of Two Worlds'', Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1977
*Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1989–1990
*''Yasuhiro Ishimoto'', Rencontres d'Arles festival, France, 1994
*''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Remembrance of Things Present'', National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1996
*''Ishimoto Yasuhiro-ten: Shikago, Tōkyō'' () / ''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Chicago and Tokyo'', Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1998
*''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: A Tale of Two Cities'', Art Institute of Chicago, 1999
*''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Mandalas of the Two Worlds at the Kyoo Gokokuji'', National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, 1999
*''Yasuhiro Ishimoto Photographs: Traces of Memory'', Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000–2001
*''Ishimoto Yasuhiro Shashinten 1946–2001'' ( 1946–2001) / ''Yasuhiro Ishimoto'', The Museum of Art, Kōchi, Kōchi, Japan, 2001
*''Tokyo: Yasuhiro Ishimoto'', Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 2012

Group exhibitions

*''The Family of Man'', Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955
*''New Japanese Photography'', Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1974

Books

Books devoted to Ishimoto's work

* ''Aru hi aru tokoro'' () / ''Someday somewhere.'' Geibi Shuppansha, 1958. Tuttle, 1959.
* ''Katsura: Nihon kenchiku ni okeru dentō to sōzō'' () / '' Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture.'' Zōkeisha and Yale University Press, 1960. Second edition (without English text): Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1971. English-language edition: New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
* ''Shikago, Shikago'' () / ''Chicago, Chicago.'' Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1969. Second edition Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1983.
* ''Metropolis'' oshi(1971)
* (With Haruo Tomiyama.) ''Ningen kakumei no kiroku'' () / ''The Document of Human Revolution.'' Tokyo: Shashin Hyōronsha, 1973.
* ''Nōmen'' (, "Noh masks"). Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1974.
* ''Den Shingonin Ryōkai Mandara'' () / ''The Mandalas of the Two Worlds.'' Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977. Photographs on folded screens, lavishly produced and packed in two very large boxes. (An edition of 500, priced at 880,000 yen.)
* ''Eros und Cosmos in Mandala: The Mandalas of the Two Worlds at the Kyoo Gokoku-ji.'' Seibu Museum of Art.
*''Den Shingon in mandara'' (). Kyoto: Sanburaito Shuppan, 1978.
*''Kunisaki kikō'' (, "Kunisaki travelogue"). Nihon no Bi. Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1978. A large-format collection of colour photographs of the Kunisaki peninsula in Kyūshū.
* ''Karesansui no niwa'' (, "Dry gardens"). Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1980.
* ''Yamataikoku gensō'' (). Nihon no Kokoro. Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1980.
* ''Isuramu: Kūkan to mon'yō'' () / ''Islam: Space and Design.'' Kyoto: Shinshindō, 1980.
* ''Kōkoku no jūichimen kannon'' (). Tokyo: Iwanami, 1982.
* ''Shikago, Shikago: Sono 2'' () / ''Chicago, Chicago.'' Tokyo: Libro Port, 1983. .
* ''Shikago, Shikago: Sono 2'' () / ''Chicago, Chicago.'' Tokyo: Canon, 1983. More black and white photographs of Chicago. No captions; foreword and chronology of the photographer in Japanese.
* ''Katsura rikyū: Kūkan to katachi'' (). Tokyo: Iwanami, 1983. English translation: ''Katsura Villa: Space and Form.'' New York: Rizzoli, 1987.
* ''Hana'' () / ''Hana.'' Tokyo: Kyūryūdō, 1988. . English edition: ''Flowers'', San Francisco: Chronicle, 1989. .
* ''Kyō no tewaza: Takumi-tachi no emoyō'' (). Tokyo: Gakugei Shorin, 1988. .
* ''The Photography of Yasuhiro Ishimoto: 1948–1989.'' Tokyo: Seibu Museum of Art, 1989.
*''Ishimoto Yasuhiro Shashinten 1946–2001'' ( 1946–2001) / ''Yasuhiro Ishimoto.'' Kōchi, Kōchi: The Museum of Art, Kochi, 2001. Text in Japanese and English.
* ''Arata Isozaki Works 30: Architectural Models, Prints, Drawings.'' Gingko, 1992. .
* ''Ise Jingū'' (, "Ise shrine"). Tokyo: Iwanami, 1995. .
* ''Genzai no kioku'' () / ''Remembrance of Things Present.'' Tokyo: National Museum of Modern Art, 1996. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Film Center in 1996. Captions and text in both Japanese and English.
* ''Ishimoto Yasuhiro'' (). Nihon no Shashinka. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1997. . A compact survey of Ishimoto's monochrome work; text in Japanese only.
* ''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: A Tale of Two Cities.'' Ed. Colin Westerbeck. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1999. . Catalogue of an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, May–September 1999.
* ''Toki'' () / ''Moment.'' Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2004. . A survey of Ishimoto's monochrome work; text in Japanese and English.
* ''Shibuya, Shibuya'' (). Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2007. . Monochrome images, mostly of the backs of individual people waiting for the lights to change at the main crossroads in front of Shibuya Station. No captions; the minimal text is in Japanese and English.
* ''Meguriau iro to katachi'' () / ''Composition.'' Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2008. . Compositions of colors. The minimal text is in Japanese only.
*''Tajū rokō'' () / ''Multi Exposure.'' Exhibition catalogue.
*''Katsura rikyū'' (). 2010. .
*Nakamori, Yasufumi. ''Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture.'' Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2010. .
*Moriyama Akiko (). ''Ishimoto Yasuhiro: Shashin to iu shikō'' () / ''Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Beyond the Eye that Shapes.'' 武蔵野美術大学出版局, 2010. 。

Other works

*Szarkowski, John, and Shoji Yamagishi. ''New Japanese Photography.'' New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1974. (hard), (paper) Four photographs (1953–1954) from ''Katsura'' (1960).
* ''Nihon nūdo meisakushū'' (, Japanese nudes). ''Camera Mainichi'' bessatsu. Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1982. Pp. 166–69 show nudes by Ishimoto.
*''Nihon shashin no tenkan: 1960 nendai no hyōgen'' () / ''Innovation in Japanese Photography in the 1960s.'' Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1991. Exhibition catalogue, text in Japanese and English. Pp. 68–77 show examples from "Chicago, Chicago".
*''Densha ni miru toshi fūkei 1981–2006'' ( / ''Scenes of Tokyo City: Prospects from the Train 1981–2006.'' Tama City, Tokyo: Tama City Cultural Foundation Parthenon Tama, 2006. Exhibition catalogue; pp. 4–13 are devoted to Ishimoto. Captions and text in Japanese and English.

Notes

References and external links

* Auer, Michèle, and Michel Auer. ''Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours/Photographers Encyclopaedia International 1839 to the Present.'' Hermance: Editions Camera Obscura, 1985.

Yasuhiro Ishimoto, photographs
Canadian Centre for Architecture
*

Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration. WWII Japanese Internment Camp; 'The Granada Relocation Center Site'
Accessed 31 March 2006


Accessed 31 March 2006

I Photo Central. 'E-Photo Newsletter, Issue 84, 1/17/2005'
Accessed, cited 31 March 2006
* Ishimoto, Yasuhiro. 'Postscript'. In ''Katsura Villa: Space and Form'' (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 265, 266.
* Isozaki, Arata, Osamu Sato and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. ''Katsura Villa: Space and Form'' (New York: Rizzoli, 1987).
* Longmire, Stephen. "Callahan's Children: Recent Retrospectives of Photographers from the Institute of Design". ''Afterimage'', vol. 28, no. 2 (September/October 2000), 6.

Photo Gallery International. 'Gallery; Gallery Artists; Yasuhiro Ishimoto'
Accessed 29 October 2003
*Stephen Daiter Gallery
Yasuhiro Ishimoto Photographs
Accessed 26 May 2008.
* Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. ''The History of Japanese Photography.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Union List of Artist Names, s.v. "Ishimoto, Yasuhiro"
Accessed 31 March 2006


''Clevescene.com'' (originally published by ''Cleveland Scene'', 2000-11-16). Accessed 31 March 2006

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ishimoto, Yasuhiro
Naturalized citizens of Japan
1921 births
2012 deaths
American photographers
Artists from Chicago
Illinois Institute of Technology alumni
Japanese photographers
Japanese-American internees
Photography academics
Tokyo College of Photography faculty
Street photographers
American people of Japanese descent
Artists from San Francisco
People from Kōchi Prefecture
American expatriates in Japan
Tokyo Zokei University faculty