Shomei Tomatsu-The most influential Japanese photographer of the postwar era







Shōmei Tōmatsu (東松 照明, Tōmatsu Shōmei, January 16, 1930 – December 14, 2012) was a Japanese photographer.Born in Nagoya in 1930, Tōmatsu studied economics at Aichi University, graduating in 1954. While still a student, he had his photographs published by the major Japanese photography magazines. He entered Iwanami and worked on the series Iwanami Shashin Bunko. Two years later, he left in order to freelance. In 1959, Tōmatsu formed Vivo with Eikoh Hosoe and Ikkō Narahara. Two years later, his and Ken Domon's book Hiroshima–Nagasaki Document 1961, on the effects of the atomic bombs, was published to great acclaim. In 1972, he moved to Okinawa; in 1975, his prizewinning book of photographs of Okinawa, Pencil of the Sun (太陽の鉛筆, Taiyō no enpitsu) was published. Tōmatsu moved to Nagasaki in 1998. Tōmatsu died in Naha (Okinawa) on 14 December 2012 (although this was not publicly announced until January 2013










Shomei Tomatsu, from the series “No. 24”, 1967








Nagoya1953








 Seto1954





“Bottle Melted and Deformed by Atomic Bomb Heat, Radiation, and Fire, Nagasaki” (1961)





“Prostitute” (1957)





 Chewing Gum and Chocolate, Yokosuka, 1959. Photographer: Shomei Tomatsu/Marta






“Untitled (Yokosuka),” from the series “Chewing Gum and Chocolate” (1959)





“Hibakusha Tsuyo Kataoka, Nagasaki” (1961)





“Coca-cola, Tokyo” (1969)





Shomei Tomatsu, Blood & Roses 2, Tokyo 1969





Shomei Tomatsu, Untitled, from the series Chewing Gum and Chocolate, Hokkaido, 1959





“Untitled (Yokosuka),” from the series “Chewing Gum and Chocolate” (1966)





“Untitled,” from the series “Protest, Tokyo” (1969)





“Untitled,” from the series “Protest, Tokyo” (1969)





 “Boy and the Sea,” Tokyo, 1969



The Moriyama – Tomatsu: Tokyo exhibition was conceived by artists Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu – before the latter’s death in 2012 – as a way to celebrate their city around a first artistic collaboration.
From Wednesday, December 16, the MEP is proud to bring together more than 400 works from the 1950s to today, which we owe to two of the most influential and essential photographers of our time. In their way, each of them nurtured a real passion for the city of Tokyo, which they have been leading for decades. This double retrospective is the first devoted to Tomatsu in France and one of the most important around the work of Moriyama. It’s a tribute to Japanese photography and the world’s greatest metropolis























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