Nakaji Yasui

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Nakaji Yasui (安井仲治, Yasui Nakaji^?) (December 15, 1903 - March 15, 1942) was one of the most prominent photographers in the first half of the 20th century in Japan.

Yasui was born in Osaka and became a member of the Naniwa Shashin Club (浪華写真倶楽部, Naniwa Photography Club) in 1920s and also became a member of the Tampei Shashin Club (Tampei Photography Club, 丹平写真倶楽部) in 1930.

His photographs cover a wide range from pictorialism to straight photography, including photomontages. He appreciated every type and kind of photographs without any prejudice and tried not to reject any of them even during wartime.

His early death is a great loss to Japanese photography after WWII.

[edit] Works

Wandering Jew (流氓（るぼう）ユダヤ) photographs of Jewish people who fled from the Nazis to Kobe (Japan) in the 1930s — in collaboration with several other photographers in the Tampei Shashin Club, such as Osamu Shiihara, Kaneyoshi Tabuchi and Tōru Kōno
Yamane Kyokubadan Series (Yamane Circus Group Series, 「山根曲馬団」のシリーズ)

[edit] Exhibitions in Japan

Nakaji Yasui (安井仲治展) 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), 1987
Nakaji Yasui (安井仲治展) at Watarium, 1993
Nakaji Yasui 1903-1942, The Photography (安井仲治展) at Shoto Museum of Art, Tokyo (渋谷区立松濤美術館) and Nagoya City Art Museum (名古屋市美術館), 2004 and 2005

[edit] English references

Kaneko Ryūichi. Modern Photography in Japan 1915-1940. San Francisco: Friends of Photography, 2001. ISBN 0-933286-74-0
Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-09925-8

[edit] Japanese references

Yasui Nakaji shashin sakuhinshū (『安井仲治写真作品集』, "Nakaji Yasui, photographs"). Kyoto: Ueda Bizan, 1942. An unbound portfolio that was privately produced (ostensibly in an edition of 50, although hors série examples also exist) and never offered for sale. (The entire portfolio is reproduced in miniature on pp. 278–84 of Nakaji Yasui: Photographer 1903–1942.) Facsimile edition: Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai, 2005. ISBN 4-336-04490-2 The facsimile edition comes with short commentaries in both Japanese and English.
Exhibition catalogue for "Nakaji Yasui" (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and Seibu Contemporary Art Gallery, 1987) (no ISBN)
Volume 12 of déjà-vu (featuring Nakaji Yasui and the 1930s (特集「安井仲治と1930年代」), published by Photo Planet 1993; also used as an exhibition catalogue for Nakaji Yasui at Watarium (no ISBN)
Yasui Nakaji: Modanizumu o kakenuketa tensai shashinka (『安井仲治　モダニズムを駆けぬけた天才写真家, Nakaji Yasui, genius of modern Japanese photography). Foto Musée. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1994. ISBN 4-10-602404-7
(Japanese) Nakaji Yasui (『安井仲治』) Nihon no shashinka (日本の写真家, "Japanese photographers"), vol. 9. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999. ISBN 4-00-008349-X
Yasui Nakaji shashinshū (『安井仲治写真集』) / Nakaji Yasui: Photographer 1903–1942. Tokyo: Kyodo News, 2004. ISBN 4-7641-0542-X The catalogue for the Shoto/Nagoya exhibition of 2004/2005 (and unusually elaborate for a Japanese exhibition catalogue); text in both Japanese and English.