shashasha

This catalogue was published on the occasion of eponymous exhibition at Tokyo Station Gallery (February 23 - April 14, 2024).

Born in Osaka in 1903, Nakaji Yasui was an influential figure in the seminal period of photography in Japan between the 1920s and the beginning of the war. With highly fluid style and an open interest in photographic developments in the western world, Yasui introduced and molded many new forms of expressions. With his sharp sensibilities and brilliant understanding of the language of photography, he produced many works that – almost one hundred years after their creation – still fascinate and move his viewers.
“1903-1942: Photographs” divides his work chronologically and thematically into five chapters, from his early beginnings in the 1920s to his move towards the city as a subject of photography in the 1930s, his landscapes, his creation of the “semi-still life”, and the final works of his career before his death in 1942 of an illness. The latter part of the book is composed of essays and commentary texts that explore Yasui’s oeuvre in depth.

With the exception of Nakao Yasui’s text and commentary notes from the book’s first half, all essays are also included in English translation.

“The subjects Yasui turned his camera to were wide-ranging, and it would be no exaggeration to say that he photographed every conceivable object—people living vigorously amid diverse environments, the beauty of form and structure identifiable in abandoned objects, surrealistic scenes, views that appear to lead on to nirvana. In each case, there is a living feel of the photographer associating friendlily with his subjects.”
― from Tadashi Kobayashi’s text “Yasui Nakaji – My Precious Photography”