| Dates: | 1930, 15 January - 2012, 14 December | | Born: | Japan, Nagoya | | Died: | Japan, Okinawa, Naha | | Active: | Japan |
Japanese freelance photographer. He has produced a large number of books with several in the 1960s examining the impact of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.Preparing biographies
Biography provided by Focal Press
Japan’s premier post-war photographer, Tomatsu chronicles the complex cultural changes from Japan’s traditional pre-war society through the ravages of World War II, American occupation, and its ambivalent struggle with Western influences. His historic documentation of the lives of atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki is distinguished for its metaphorical depth and intimacy. Co-founder of the VIVO cooperative agency in 1959, he advocated a new social landscape of photography in Japan, influenced by the humanist subjectivity and surrealism of Europe and America. Initially black and white, characterized by graphic minimalism and dramatic composition, his later works embrace color. His portraits of bohemian nightlife in Tokyo’s countercultural Shinjuku, his elegies to traditional life remaining in remote islands of Japan, and his ironic depictions of the collision of Western and Eastern cultures are powerful documents that simultaneously mourn and celebrate.
(Author: Garie Waltzer - Photographer and consultant)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
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