Iwata Nakayama: Modern Photography Iwata Nakayama

*Available only in Europe

*This book is secondhand.

A substantial collection of the work of Iwata Nakayama (1895-1949), who, based in Ashiya, led prewar modernist photography. Planned by the Society for Iwata Nakayama and supervised by the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, it was published by Tankosha in 2003 (317 pages, slipcased). Having returned to Japan after working in New York and Paris, Nakayama founded the Ashiya Camera Club and became a centre of Kansai modernism, and the book gathers a wide range of his work, from experimental pieces using photograms, montage and multiple exposure to refined portraits and still lifes. Beginning with his 1930s signature work Fukusuke Tabi, one can savour through abundant plates the urbane, elegant images in which he sublimated the techniques of the European avant-garde through a sensibility all his own. A basic reference that became the occasion for reappraising, from a nationwide vantage, work long discussed within the history of Kansai photography, it is indispensable for thinking about Japanese modernist photography.