Eiko Yamazawa

 

Eiko Yamazawa (Japanese, 1899-1995)
(Untitled (Yasue Yamamoto as Okichi in “Elegy for a Woman” by Yuzo Yamamoto))
c. 1943-1944, printed 1944
Gelatin silver print
Image: 15 x 10.5cm (5 7/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
Mat: 50.8 x 40.64cm (20 x 16 in.)
Frame (outer): 54.61 x 44.45cm (21 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.)
Tomoka Aya, The Third Gallery Aya
© Yamazawa Eiko

Eiko Yamazawa (Japanese, 1899-1995)

Eiko Yamazawa (山沢 栄子, Yamazawa Eiko, February 19, 1899 – July 16, 1995) was a renowned Japanese photographer. She is considered one of Japan’s earliest women photographers and is among the few women photographers in Japan who were active both before and after World War II. First trained in Nihonga, she later studied photography in the U.S. under the mentorship of Consuelo Kanaga, and also exposed to the work of Kanaga’s contemporaries such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston.

Eiko Yamazawa / Reviving the forgotten influence of a pioneering female photographer

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Reviving the forgotten influence of a pioneering female photographer

by MARIGOLD WARNER

Ahead of the opening of Eiko Yamazawa’s first posthumous retrospective in Tokyo, curator Tsukasa Ikegami discusses the importance of the Japanese photographer’s abstract work, and why her legacy has largely been forgotten

 

PREVIEW: Japanese Women Photographers-From 1950s to Now

Rewriting the story of Japanese photography through the eyes of women and showcasing the work of 27 groundbreaking artists from the 1950s to today, the exhibition “Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to Now” highlights the perspectives that have shaped how Japan sees itself – and how it is seen by the world.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: The Photographers’ Gallery Archive

 

PHOTO: Deborah Turbeville-Photocollage

The American photographer Deborah Turbeville (1932–2013) challenged and reshaped both fashion photography and the ways of working with the photographic image in an artistic context. She belonged to no particular school or movement, yet from the 1970s onwards developed a deeply personal visual language – characterised by a distinctive aesthetic in which timelessness, melancholy, and a sense of patina permeate her photographs.By Dimitris Lempesis

PREVIEW: Nobuyoshi Araki

Fascinated by the fundamental and inextricable triangle of sex, life, and death (it is to him we owe the words “I was no sooner out of my mother’s womb than I turned around and photographed her vagina”), Nobuyoshi Araki is tireless as a photographer, obsessed by women, often bound, and flowers, captured in the all the intimacy of their colored folds.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hamiltons Gallery Archive

 

Nobuyoshi Araki -Impossible Love / Vintage Photographs

Nobuyoshi Araki worked in advertising after completing his studies in photography and film at Chiba University in Tokyo, devoting himself exclusively to photography as of the mid-1960s. His oeuvre spans erotic portraits of women, artificial still-lifes, photographs of plants, documentary-style depictions of everyday life, and architectural photography but also very personal, diaristic photographs of himself and his deceased wife Yoko.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: C/O Berlin Foundation

Yayoi Kusama Museum

 

 

OBLITERATION OF LIFE 2011 © YAYOI KUSAMA

YAYOI KUSAMA MUSEUM

Title

The Light Spreads Out, and Glittering Things Start Appearing All Around Me

Dates

Thursday, October 8, 2026 – Sunday, January 31, 2027

All tickets must be purchased in advance online. Entry is timed and only valid for a specific 90-minute time slot.
Please purchase tickets in advance from here.

 

ART-PRESENTATION: Yayoi Kusama-Every Day I Pray For Love

One of the most influential artists of the 20TH AND 21ST Centuries, Kusama occupies a unique position within recent art history. Since her early assimilation of pop art and minimalism in the 1960s, she has created a highly personal oeuvre that resonates with a global audience. Distinctly recognizable, her works frequently deploy repetitive elements, such as dots, to evoke both microscopic and macroscopic universes.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive

 

PRESENTATION: Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama’s work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her highly influential career encompasses paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fondation Beyeler Archive

 

Jeff Brouws-Silent Monoliths

Over a career spanning more than three decades, photographer Jeff Brouws has operated as a self-described “visual anthropologist,” constructing a rigorous catalog of the built environment across the United States. His work interrogates the socio-spatial and socio-economic remnants of mid-century American idealism and the late-stage capitalistic shifts that followed. From the expanse of the interstate highway system and corporate sprawl to deindustrialized inner-city corridors, Brouws uses structured photographic typologies and deliberate narrative frameworks to map an ever-changing national identity.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Robert Mann Gallery Archive

 

ARCHITECTURE: Wang Shu

“Architecture as mountains” is how the Chinese architect, Wang Shu (4/11/1963- ) describes his design for the Ningbo Historic Museum. His buildings have the unique ability to evoke the past, without making direct references to history. With his practice partner and wife Lu Wenyu, they founded the firm Amateur Architecture Studio. In 2012, Wang became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Prize, the world’s Nobel Prize in architecture.

By Efi Michalarou

 

Stan Douglas-Paralax

Stan Douglas’s work explores the relationship between history, memory, and representation through photography, film, and multimedia installations. Drawing on historical events, literature, music, and cinema, he reconstructs forgotten or overlooked narratives, often examining social and political transformations. His meticulously staged images and complex audiovisual works challenge conventional storytelling, revealing how technology, ideology, and cultural memory shape our understanding of the past and present.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Jeu de Paume Archive

ARCHITECTURE:Frank Lloyd Wright-Unpacking the Archive, Part II

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the most prolific and renowned architects of the 20th Century, a radical designer and intellectual who embraced new technologies and materials, pioneered do-it-yourself construction systems as well as Avant-Garde experimentation, and advanced original theories with regards to nature, urban planning, and social politics (Part I).

By Dimitris Lempesis

Photo: MoMA Archive

ARCHITECTURE:Frank Lloyd Wright-Unpacking the Archive, PART I

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the most prolific and renowned architects of the 20th Century, a radical designer and intellectual who embraced new technologies and materials, pioneered do-it-yourself construction systems as well as Avant-Garde experimentation, and advanced original theories with regards to nature, urban planning, and social politics (Part II).

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: MoMA Archive

ARCHITECTURE: Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright is widely considered the greatest architect of the 20th century, and the greatest American architect of all time. He perfected a distinctly American style of architecture that emphasized simplicity and natural beauty in contrast to the elaborate and ornate architecture that had prevailed in Europe.

By Efi Michalarou