Japan...a chapter of image. A photographic essay by W. Eugene Smith with Carole Thomas. Hitachi, Tokyo, 1963. 79 pp. quarto. First edition. Handmade Japanese rag paper over board. Numerous black-and-white reproductions.
"In 1961, W. Eugene Smith, the photojournalist, was commissioned by Hitachi Ltd. to photograph the company's operations throughout Japan...Printed in the dark, moody style that Smith favored, these images record not only the company's operations but also Japanese society at a time when the country was just beginning to emerge as an industrial power after World War II.
"Smith delighted in recording contrasts between traditional Japanese culture and the new industry. One picture, for example, shows a group of women in kimonos and scarves waiting for a bus on a busy street; another depicts a tiny geisha figurine amid piles of rubble. Other pictures reveal Smith's deeply romantic view of the world. In a shot of pigeons sitting on the decorated roof beams of a traditional building, the birds bill and coo, their necks echoing the curving beams.
Still other images celebrate industrial power, in strongly graphic compositions that in some cases recall Constructivist works of the 1920's.
But as always in Smith's passionate photographs, it is the people in front of his lens who most strongly attract his attention, and his sympathy.--Charles Hagen, The New York Times
"In 1961, W. Eugene Smith, the photojournalist, was commissioned by Hitachi Ltd. to photograph the company's operations throughout Japan...Printed in the dark, moody style that Smith favored, these images record not only the company's operations but also Japanese society at a time when the country was just beginning to emerge as an industrial power after World War II.
"Smith delighted in recording contrasts between traditional Japanese culture and the new industry. One picture, for example, shows a group of women in kimonos and scarves waiting for a bus on a busy street; another depicts a tiny geisha figurine amid piles of rubble. Other pictures reveal Smith's deeply romantic view of the world. In a shot of pigeons sitting on the decorated roof beams of a traditional building, the birds bill and coo, their necks echoing the curving beams.
Still other images celebrate industrial power, in strongly graphic compositions that in some cases recall Constructivist works of the 1920's.
But as always in Smith's passionate photographs, it is the people in front of his lens who most strongly attract his attention, and his sympathy.--Charles Hagen, The New York Times
