Sakae Tamura (photographer)
Sakae Tamura (田村 榮, Tamura Sakae, September 17, 1906 – July 22, 1987) was a Japanese photographer, prominent in the years before the war.
Born in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture,[1] Tamura graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography (東京写真専門学校, Tōkyō Shashin Senmon Gakkō; now Tokyo Polytechnic University) and entered Oriental (オリエンタル写真工, Orientaru Shashin Kōgyō) in 1928 and became editor of Photo Times . He was an active contributor to the magazine Geijutsu Shashin Kenkyū and in Japan Photography Association (日本光画協会, Nihon Kōga Kyōkai), created in 1928 and a successor to the Japan Photographic Art Association (日本光画芸術協会, Nihon Kōga Geijutsu Kyōkai). He was a leading figure in the New Photography Research Society (新興写真研究会, Shinkō Shashin Kenkyūkai), formed in 1930.
Tamura's work was influenced both by pictorialism and by New Photography .
Tamura is particularly known for his portraits, and Shiroi hana (白い花, White flower, 1931) is the best-known of these and widely anthologized.[2] Okatsuka says that it expresses a certain lyricism but “displays a more sophisticated sense of maturity” than the works of his contemporaries Masataka Takayama and Jun Watanabe.[3]
Books by Tamura
[edit]- Seibutsu shashin no utsushikata (静物写真の写し方). Tokyo: Sōgeisha, 1952. A guide to photographing still lifes.
- Sakuga no daiippo (作画の第一歩[4]). Tokyo: Genkōsha, 1954. A guide to the practice of photography.
Notes
[edit]- ^ Matsumoto claims — in “Sakka kaisetsu” (作家解説, About the photographers) — that he was born in Tokyo; this article instead follows the Biographic Dictionary and Founding as later and perhaps better informed works.
- ^ Handsome reproductions of two different versions appear as plate 52 of Matsumoto, ed., Collection (reddish), and plates 32 and 93 of Founding and Tucker, ed., History respectively (much more neutral).
- ^ Akiko Okatsuka, in Founding, 20.
- ^ On the cover, a nonstandard glyph is used for 画: 二 enclosing 田.
Sources
[edit]- Kaneko Ryūichi. “The Origins and Development of Japanese Art Photography.” Pp. 100–42 of Tucker, ed., History. Pp. 110–13, 137. (in English)
- Matsuda Takako. “Tamura Sakae”. In Tucker, ed., History, p. 363. (in English)
- Matsumoto Norihiko. (松本徳彦), ed. A Collection of Japanese Photographs 1912–1940. Tokyo: Shashinkosha, 1990. (in Japanese) Despite its English-only title, the book is in Japanese only. It is a lavish production (if unpaginated), not offered for sale and instead presumably distributed to customers.
- Nihon kindai shashin no seiritsu to tenkai (日本近代写真の成立と展開) / The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan. Tokyo: Tokyo Museum of Photography, 1995. (in English and Japanese)
- Nihon no shashinka (日本の写真家) / Biographic Dictionary of Japanese Photography. Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2005. ISBN 4-8169-1948-1. (in Japanese) Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese.
- Taidan: Shashin kono gojūnen (対談:写真この五十年, Discussions: The last fifty years of photography). Edited by the staff of Asahi Camera. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1974. (in Japanese) Ihei Kimura interviews Tamura in chapter 7, "Shinkō shashin tezukuri no aji" (新興写真手作りの味).
- Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-09925-8. (in English)