KUWABARA, Fumiaki

About Japanese photographer, Shisei KUWABARA (b.1936 as Fumiaki KUWABARA, in Kibe, Shimane prefecture)

Shisei/Fumaiki KUWABARA is a photojournalist best known for his depiction of the effects of mercury poisoning on people in and near Minamata over a period of some forty years. In 1960 he graduated from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Tokyo Photo School (later Tokyo College of Photography). In the same year he started work as a freelance photographer. With a letter of introduction from a journalist with Shūkan Asahi magazine, he visited the director of Minamata Municipal Hospital to ask for permission to photograph. 'Minamata' series was published at the Fuji Photo Salon, Ginza, in autumn, 1963. The aspect of declining coal mine, 'Chikuho' was shot in 1959, at the school days. 'Korea' was recorded over a quarter century from 1964. The then Korean society was turbulent with the political unrest. During shooting period from 1967 to 1975, met with the Tet Offensive in 1968. 'Russia' was shot at Moscow in August 1991 meeting with the coup d’êtat that led the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Photo books by as well as with works by Shisei/Fumiaki KUWABARA

• 'Shashin-shū Minamata-byō (写真集 水俣病) / Minamata Desease, 1965); 'Shashin-kiroku Minamata-byō 1960–1970 (写真記録 水俣病 /Documentary: Minamata disease, 1970); 'Seikatsusha gunzō (生活者群像 /Collage of living people, 1980); 'Minamata Kankoku Betonamu (水俣・韓国・ベトナム, 1982); 'Tōji no sato Kōrai, Richō (陶磁の里 高麗・李朝, 1984); 'Kōrai, Richō gendai tōjisen (高麗・李朝現代陶磁撰, 1985); 'Kankoku genkei (韓国原影 / Korea's original scenes, 1986); 'Minamata (水俣, 1986); 'Hōdōshashinka (報道写真家 / Documentary photographer, 1989); 'Kankoku shinjō toro (韓国真情吐露 / Expressing genuine sentiments about Korea, 1990); 'Nihon shashin no tenkan: 1960 nendai no hyōgen (日本写真の転換：1960時代の表現) / Innovation in Japanese Photography in the 1960s, 1991); 'Yameru taikoku Roshia (病める大国 ロシア / Russia. A sick great nation, 1995); 'Kuwabara Shisei / Minamata (桑原史成/水俣, 1996); 'Kuwabara Shisei shashin zenshū (桑原史成写真全集 /The Complete Works of Kuwabara, Shinsei, 1998); 'Vietnam' (1999); 'Imujin-gan: Kaima-mita Kita Chōsen (イムジンガン：垣間見た北朝鮮 / Imjin-gang: Glimpses of North Korea, 2003); 'Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 70s' (2009, by Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian);
  

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