[Japan: Various Publishers, 1960–1978.]. Collection of 39 Japanese protest books from a private collection, representative of the highlights of the genre, assembled over the course of several years and several trips to Japan. Includes seminal publications by Kazuo Kitai, Tadao Mitome, Osamu Nagahama, Shomei Tomatsu, and Takashi Hamaguchi, among other photographers.
See also
1.
(All Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union Okinawa Branch). Document Zengunro Tososhi / History of the Struggle of the All Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union.
Okinawa: Ryukyushinpo-sha, 1978. First Edition. Quarto. A document of student and labor demonstrations in Okinawa, complied by the local Okinawan newspaper. No photographers credited.
2.
(All Japan Students - Photographers Association). Hiroshima Hiroshima Hiroshima.
Tokyo: 491, 1972. First Edition. Quarto. Anthology of student images of Hiroshima shot in the Provoke style.
3.
FUKUSHIMA, Kikujiro. Report from a Battlefield: Sanrizuka 1967-1977.
Tokyo: Shakai Hyoronsha, 1977. First Edition. Quarto. Japanese protest book. Very thorough documentation of the battle over Narita Airport, with an introduction and some captions in English. Gripping bw images of all facets of the struggle.
4.
FUKUSHIMA, Kikujiro. Gasu Dan no Tanima Kara no Hokoku / A Report from the Valley of the Gas War.
Tokyo: M.P.S. Shuppanbu, 1969. First Edition. Quarto. Excellent images of the 1969 Tokyo student protests. Only one copy in OCLC.
5.
HAMAGUCHI, Takashai. The Shudders of Narita Airport.
[Tokyo]: Self-published, 1978.
6.
AMAGUCHI, Takashi. Document Angle.
Tokyo: Nippon Camera-sha (1973). First Edition. Small quarto. Images from a cross-section of Japanese life, shot in a variety of styles that encapsulate the movements of the time: from Provoke, to the gritty realism of Miyako Ishiuchi, to the banal eroticism of Araki.
7.
HAMAGUCHI, Takashi. Documentary Photographs of Takashi Hamaguchi.
Tokyo: Nippon Camera-sha (1969). First Edition. Small quarto. Great juxtaposition of Hamaguchi's documentary work, with extraordinary war and protest pictures.
8.
HAMAGUCHI, Takashi. Document Sanrizuka Junen no Kiroku / Document Sanrizuka Record for 10 Years.
Tokyo: Nihon Sahshin Kikaku, 1977. First Edition. Small quarto. SIGNED by Hamiguchi in Kanji. Hamaguchi's images of the protests surrounding the building of Narita Airport in Tokyo.
9.
HAMAGUCHI, Takashi. Daigaku Toso Nanaju-nen Ampo (Anpo) E.
Tokyo: Yuzankaku Shuppan, 1969.
10.
HAMAYA, Hiroshi. Ikari to Kanashimi no Kiroku / Record of Anger and Sadness.
Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1960. First Edition. Small quarto. An early protest book - likely the first major example - by a photographer best-known for his photographs of Japan's snow country. The book documents riots and protests resulting from the ratification of the 1960 Security Treaty between Japan and the United States. At the time Hamaya was one of Japan's leading photographers, yet these images were censored from the mainstream press, leading to the creation of small, independent, and inexpensively produced volumes that constitute the beginning of the protest book culture in Japanese photography. Hamaya's photograph of left-wing leader Michiko Kanba, brutally beaten to death by the police, was later published by Life magazine and was directly responsible for his subsequent inclusion in Magnum.
11.
HANABUSA, Sinzo. Noson karano shoen / Testimony by the Farmers.
Tokyo: Asahi-shinbunsha, 1971. First Edition. Quarto.
12
ISHIKAWA, Bunyo. The Vietnam War and the People.
Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha (1971). First Edition. Quarto. Images and text by Ishikawa. Riveting images that rival the best documentary work of the Vietnam War. The Japanese photographers who covered the war (Ishikawa, Kyochi Sawada, Keisaburo Shimamoto) have been woefully under appreciated in the Western photographic world.
13.
(Japanese protest book). 10.21 towa nanika / What is October 21st?
Np: Privately published [1969]. First Edition. Small octavo. A small book by anonymous photographers documenting the antiwar struggle in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on October 21, 1968. Electric images shot in style of the Provoke photographers; one of the best and scarcest of the protest books.
14.
(Japanese protest book). '69 11/13-17 Sato Hobei Soshi Toso / Fight to Stop Sato from Visiting America.
[Tokyo]: Privately published [1969]. First Edition. Small octavo. A sequel of sorts to the Aperture referenced 10-21 towa nanika, published in a similar format, and documenting student protests in opposition to Prime Minister Sato's trip to the US to renegotiate the AMPO treaty. Highly charged nighttime images of violent street demonstrations rendered in the Provoke style, though the blurriness and heightened use of flash might have been the result of the environment rather than an artistic choice. The lack of scholarship on Japanese protest books combined with their relative scarcity makes it difficult to contextualize individual works within the larger body of Japanese photographic literature. By 1969, however, the Provoke movement had become the predominant force in Japanese photography, making it entirely feasible that the unattributed photographers of this book had a style in mind when they went out into the Tokyo streets to document the event. As usual with most protest books, no copies can be located in OCLC.
15.
(Japanese protest book). Kono chijo ni wareware no kuni ha nai / Kogai kyampen shashinshu / No Country on the Earth for Us / Public Nuisances Campaign.
Tokyo: Public Nuisances Campaign Executive Committee of All Japan Students Photo Association, [1970]. First Edition. Octavo. Japanese environmental protest book, one of the best of this limited subset within the protest genre. No individual photographers identified. Images of factories, pollution, toxic waste and sludge, bellowing smokestacks, Minamata disease, housing projects, etc. No copies in OCLC.
16.
(Japanese Protest Book). Yurusenaihi kara no Kiroku / Record from Unforgiving Day.
Tokyo: Mugi Shobo, 1960. First Edition. Small quarto. Early Japanese protest book. The photographers are unidentified. With some of the well-known images of riots protesting the 1960 Security Treaty between Japan and the United States. No copies in OCLC.
17.
(Japanese Protest Book). An Advance of Japanese Victory: The Struggle Against the U.S. - Japan Security Treaty.
Tokyo: Publishing Section of the C.P. of Japan, N.d. (but c. 1960). First Edition. Small quarto. Like Hiroshi Hamaya's Record of Anger and Sadness, this book by unidentified photographers documents riots and protests resulting from the ratification of the 1960 Security Treaty between Japan and the United States. Some text in English, with one image of people beaten to death, followed by another image of a funeral. These publications mark the beginning of the protest genre in Japanese photographic literature.
18.
KANAYAMA, Toshiaki. Dotou / Years of Violent Change.
N.p.: N.p., 1970. First Edition. Quarto. Little-known Japanese protest book documenting various demonstrations between 1976-1970. Exceptional images. No copies in OCLC. (A book by this photographer published in 1984 appears in OCLC.)
19.
KITAI, Kazuo. Sanrizuka 1969-1971.
Tokyo: Nora-sha, 1971. First Edition. Quarto. SIGNED by the photographer. A documentation of the Sanrizuka farmers' opposition and resistance to the government's plan to build Narita airport. The most powerful example we have seen of an entire subset of little-known Japanese photobooks that deal with this struggle. Although not an official member of Provoke, Kitai was a pioneer in the photographic style championed by the group. His first book, Resistance, published in 1965, was greatly admired by the founders of Provoke, Daido Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira. Near fine in photo-illustrated wrappers and original publisher's card slipcase. A scarce book purportedly published in small numbers. No copy in OCLC. Possibly slated for inclusion in Parr / Badger 3, and a forthcoming Steidl publication on protest books.
20
KITAI, Kazuo. Teikoh. (Resistance).
Tokyo: Murai-sha (1965). First Edition. Square quarto. Text by Kosei Inoue. The first book by unheralded Japanese photographer Kazuo Kitai, documenting student protests in the early 1960s; SIGNED by Kitai in Kanji and English. One of several important protest and antiwar books virtually unknown in the West. Interestingly, several blurred and grainy pictures would seem to presage the work of the Provoke photographers. According to Kitai, both Daido Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira - the founders of Provoke - were huge admirers of the book. Kitai was also the publisher of Ihei Kimura's Paris, and the recipient of the first Ihei Kimura award for his 1976 book "To the Village." Near fine copy in photo-illustrated wrappers with the instantly recognizable cover image of helmeted soldiers marching. No obi as issued. No copy in OCLC.
21.
KOH, Yoshioka. Okinawa 69-70.
Tokyo: Shashin Ichigun, 1970. First Edition. Quarto. Okinawa protest book published by Shashin Ichigun, a group of photographers opposed to the American occupation of Okinawa. Many images shot by Yoshioka Koh.
22.
KURIHARA Tatsuo and Makoto Nakajima. Ikari o hibi no kate ni.
Tokyo: Tojusha, 1969. First Edition. Quarto. Excellent 1969 Japanese protest book.
23.
KURIHARA, Tatsuo. Shashin hokoku Okinawa, 1961-1971.
Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1970. First Edition. Quarto. Booklet laid in. Japanese protest book. With an interesting section of color images at the rear.
24.
MITOME, Tadao. Records of Revolts 60-70: ANPO, Okinawa and the Struggles on School Campuses.
Tokyo: Taihei Shuppan-sha, 1969. First Edition. Octavo.
25.
MITOME, Tadao. Sanrizuka - Moeru Hokuso daichi / Document 1966-71.
Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1971. First Edition. Quarto. Excellent book documenting protests surrounding the building of Narita Airport. Edited by Kayoshi Awazo and photographed by Tadeo Mitome, among others. This copy INSCRIBED by Mitome in Japanese and dated March 13, 1973.
26.
NAGAHAMA, Osamu. Atsuhu nagai yoru no shima / A Hot and Long Night in Okinawa.
Tokyo: Hogashoten (1972). First Edition. Quarto. Pictures of the seamy underside of life in Okinawa, shot in the style popularized by the Provoke photographers, with a section each printed on green and blue paper. Unlike the overtly political Okinawa protest books, Nagahama focuses more on the American soldiers and their extracurricular activities outside the military zone. One of the best unreferenced Japanese books of the era.
27.
NAGATA, Touzou. Hiroshima 1960.
Tokyo: Patoria Shoten, 1960. First Edition. Quarto. 95pp., printed on cheap paper. Survey of Hiroshima in 1960. Feels and looks like a protest book, but is more pure social documentary. Three copies in OCLC.
28.
[Nichidai zenkyoto kirokuhan / All University Joint-Struggle Committee of Nihon University]. Graf Nichidai toso / Student Struggle of Nihon University.
Tokyo: Godosangyo-shupanbu, 1969. First Edition. Quarto. Excellent Japanese student protest book published in 1969. To the best of my knowledge the specific photographers are unattributed. No copies in OCLC.
29.
(NON Magazine). TAKUMA, Akio et al. Non: Volumes 1 and 2. (Vol. 1: Han-sen Eno Shisaku / For Antiwar Thoughts. Vol. 2: Okinawa Wa Niga-Yo / Okinawa is a Bitter World.)
Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 1969-1970. First Editions. Quarto. The first and only two volumes of the annual Japanese protest magazine: Non. Edited by Akio Tamura and Takao Iida. Both volumes printed in a deep gravure. Volume 1 has images of Mimamata and sections on various protests; volume 2 is devoted to Okinawa.
30.
SAWADA, Kyoichi. Battlefield.
N.p.: The Mainichi Newspapers (1971). First Edition and scarce thus: most copies sold are later editions, improperly identified. Square quarto. A tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning Japanese war photographer, Kyoichi Sawada, killed in Cambodia during the Vietnam war. Illustrated with Sawada's gripping UPI photographs. The book was apparently in production when Sawada was killed. One of the best of the Japanese Vietnam war books.
31.
SAWADA, Kyoichi. Dusty Death.
Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971. First Edition. Quarto. Posthumous collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning UPI photographer Kyoichi Sawada, killed on assignment in Cambodia in 1970. Riveting images of the Vietnam War. On par with his better-known book, Battlefield, and certainly as good as anything by Philip Jones Griffiths or David Douglas Duncan. As a whole, the group of Japanese photographers in Vietnam produced perhaps the best photographic record of the particular horrors of that conflict. OCLC locates a single copy at Texas.
32.
SHIMAMOTO, Keisaburo and Akihiko Okamura. Kare wa Betonamu de shinda / He Died in Vietnam.
[Tokyo] 1972. First Edition. A stunning and little-known book of Vietnam war photography by Keisaburo Shimamoto, later shot down in a helicopter along with photographers Kent Potter and Larry Burrows. Among many remarkable photographs in this book, one in particular of a boy peering over the railing of a flat bed truck where his dead mother or sister has been loaded in like a dead animal is agonizing. This same scene was also photographed by Phillip Jones Griffiths in Vietnam Inc., but Shimamoto's image is better.
33.
TAMURA, Shigeru. Nawabashigo to Tetsukabuto / Rope Ladders and Steel Hats.
Tokyo: Pen Poporo, 1960. First Edition. Small quarto. Early protest book, with images by Shigeru Tamura (among others). Decidedly pre-Provoke in feel.
34.
TAMURA, Shigeru. Kita Betonamu no Shogen / Testimony of North Vietnam.
Tokyo: Shin-Nihonshuppansha, 1967. First Edition. Small quarto. A book documenting the effects of war on the North Vietnamese people. Winner of the Japan Photo Critics Society Special Award in 1967. There is a long list of little-known Japanese photobooks documenting the Vietnam war.
35.
TAMURA, Shigeru. Minna Ga Eiyu.
Tokyo: Mainichi-shibunsha, 1965. First Edition. Small quarto. Photographs of North Vietnamese during the war, predominately women, soldiers and civilians, shot from the Communist perspective, and providing an angle on the war almost never seen in western photography. Some color images, including the cover which depicts a gun-toting female standing in rubble. OCLC locates only two copies. Tamura's 1960 book Rope Ladders and Steel Hats is one of the original Japanese protest books.
36.
TOMATSU, Shomei. Okinawa.
Tokyo: Shaken (1969). First Edition. Oblong quarto. SIGNED by Tomatsu in Japanese and dated in the year of publication. Three promotional flyers laid in. Images of Okinawa presented in a Provoke style with a more documentary and social bent than other books by Provoke photographers. (Auer 503)
37.
URESHINO, Kyoko. Okinawa.
Tokyo: Shin-Nihonshuppansha, 1968. First Edition. Small quarto. 103pp. Okinawa protest book.
38.
WATANABE, Hitomi et al. Todai Zenkyoto / The All-Campus Joint Struggle at Tokyo University.
Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1969. First Edition. Octavo. Hitomi Watanabe, a female member of Provoke, was one of the most important photographers to shoot the student riots at Tokyo University. While Japanese photobooks have become better known in the West over the past ten years, there are perhaps dozens of exceptional works on the Vietnam War and the Sixties that fly largely under the radar. OCLC locates a single copy.
39.
WATANABE, Hitomi. (Student Power League of Tokyo). Kaihoku '68 / Liberated Area '68.
Tokyo: Japan University Students Power League Office, 1968. First Edition. Small octavo. Chronological report about the famous 1968 student riot in Tokyo, with most photographs taken by Hitomi Watanabe. An exceptional protest book with countless gripping images. One copy in OCLC.
WHAT IS 10/21? (1969) : THE ‘10.21 TO HA NANIKA’ PUBLISHING COMMITTEE
