Deutsch
English
Background information
"Shoji UEDA is regarded as one of the most outstanding Japanese photographers of his time. Although he only left his native Tottori Prefecture on a few occasions, he discovered the photographic innovations of the Western avant-garde through specialist publications that he received from time to time, and he felt drawn toward technical and aesthetic experimentation. Following a barren period during the Second World War, he returned to his work and produced some of his most representative imagery, in which the dunes of Tottori became a stage on which he arranged human figures in his own particular way. The charm and ingenuity of these curious images has no parallel in the history of photography. His conception of this art form was closely linked to his sense of humor, to a highly special aesthetic approach, and to his enormous curiosity about the small things of everyday life." (© Shoji Ueda Museum of Photography)
Content
Comprising work produced throughout the span of the professional life of Shoji UEDA, from the 1930s through the 1990s, this book, 'Small Biography', features photographs that were originally published in the now-defunct Camera Mainichi magazine between 1974 and 1985.
Additional information
'Small Biography' on the work of Shoji UEDA was published in a limited edition of 1000 copies, numbered with an ink stamp on the colophon page. The hardcover has bright yellow cloth-covered boards with a tipped-in black-and-white plate on the cover and a photographically-illustrated paper-covered back cover; with a clear acetate dust jacket. The photographs are by Shoji UEDA, the text (in Japanese and English) is by Gabriel Bauret. The book includes a brief chronology (in Japanese and English).
'Small Biography' is designed by Toshio SHIRATANI (Nomade). The boook has 168 unpaginated pages with 157 black-and-white plates, beautifully printed on coated paper.