JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS
The Japanese photobook magnificently and uniquely blends the art of the
photographer and the art of book production—including format, narrative, and
the ability to ask deep and pressing questions about the self, the other, the old,
the new, the great, and the small—with majesty, elegance, intimate resonance, and
glorious wonderment. Both bold and quiet, these books by photographers such
as Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, Takashi Homma, and Masahisa
Fukase, elevated the book to a level previously unimagined. Hosoe’s brilliant
gatefolds and penetrating use of photogravure, Araki’s graphic look at sex and
lust, Moriyama’s breathtaking grit and output, and Fukase’s insistent, dark, deeply
moving images of ravens, each astounds, shocks, and probes the reader.
Lot 231 (detail)
