Eikoh Hosoe, One of the Masters of Japanese Photography

Born in 1933, Eikoh Hosoe is one of the biggest names in contemporary Japanese photography. By depicting the naked body without taboo, he has developed an art that is both erotic and macabre and created his own visual language over the course of his prolific career.

After studying at the Tokyo College of Photography, Hosoe first embarked upon his perpetual quest for beauty in documentary photography, examining Tokyo’s prostitutes before turning his attention towards more theatrical scenes. His encounter with the founder of Butoh theatre, Tatsumi Hijikata, marked a turning point in his career. Their collaborative book Man & Woman transcends eroticism. This was followed by the series Barokei – Killed by Roses, created with the controversial author Yukio Mishima, an erotic story with a sombre undertone that enjoyed international success.

From 1957 to 1961, Hosoe continued to collaborate with others, this time founding the Vivo photography collective alongside Shomei Tomatsu, Ikko Narahara, Kikuji Kawada, Akira Sato and Akira Tanno. This photographic movement had a profound impact on the style observed in Japanese photography throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Despite being best known for his photography, Eikoh Hosoe has also excelled as a teacher, filmmaker and writer. His photographs are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The unique grain of his images, his contrasts, his impeccable aesthetic execution and his perspective on the body have enabled Eikoh Hosoe to build up a body of work that shakes up ideas and is a source of fascination generation after generation.