Chicago Chicago Yasuhiro Ishimoto The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990 Photography

Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Chicago, Chicago
Photographs: Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Text: Harry Callahan, Shuzo Takiguchi & Yusaku Kamekura
Publisher: Bijutsu Shuppansha
224 pages
Pictures: 208
Year: 1969
Comments: Hardcover in a slipcase,the rare obi is missing, 270 x 278 mm. First edition, 1969. Design by Yusaku Kamekura. Some wear on sliplcase but in very good condition. Black & white reproductions very well printed. Included in The Photobook by Parr & Badger, vol.1 p. 289 ; Auer Book, p.495.

Yasuhiro Ishimoto spent his time between 1960 and 1962 photographing Chicago. This was an immense amount of film, from which he selected 1000 shots and printed them, six hundred chosen himself, and three hundred more with the assistance of the photographer Kiyoshi Otsuji.

This book is the freezing of instants of time by the American Ishimoto, looking back with sorrow upon the Chicago of his years of maturing, and that this volume should be brought to completion is, I believe, a dramatic event for the Japanese people.

Yusaku Kamekura


"From pictorialism to Provoke: the most extensive history of Japanese photobooks ever published" Among others the over 500 pages counting book features such renowned photographers as Yoshio Watanabe, Akira Hoshi, Hayao Yoshikawa, Shinichi Kato, Yasuo Wakuda, Tetsuo Kitahara, Moriyama Daido, Koji Taki, Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Kimura Ihei, Hamaya, Katura, Kazano, Kikuti, Mituzumi, Watanabe, Yamahata, Sozo Okada and Kazano Karuo, among many others. -- "'The Japanese Photobook, 1912–1980' illustrates the development of photography as seen in photo publications in Japan—from the time of influence by European and American pictorialism, the German Bauhaus and Imperial military propaganda, to the complete collapse and destruction of the country in 1945. Then followed a new beginning: with the unique self-determination of a young generation of photographers and visual artists highlighted by the “Provoke” style as well as protest and war documentation of the late 1950s to the early ’70s, the signature Japanese photobook, as we have come to know it, was born.

With detailed information and illustrations of over 400 photo publications, an introduction by Kaneko Ryuichi and essays by Fujimura Satomi, Duncan Forbes, Manfred Heiting, Mitsuda Yuri, Lizawa Kotaro, Shirayama Mari and Matthew S. Witkovsky, this is the first extensive English-language survey of Japanese photobooks of this period." (publisher's note)

About the main author:
Ryuichi Kaneko is a critic, historian, and collector of photobooks. He has authored or contributed to numerous publications, including 'Independent Photographers in Japan 1976–83' (Tokyo Shoseki, 1989), 'The History of Japanese Photography' (Yale University Press and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2003), 'Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s' (Aperture, 2009), and 'Japan’s Modern Divide' (J. Paul Getty Museum)

See also 

Five Aspects of Japanese Photobooks Ryuichi Kaneko Photobook Phenomenon