Yōichi Midorikawa (緑川 洋一, Midorikawa Yōichi; 1915–2001), birth name Satoshi Yokoyama (横山 知), was a Japanese…
Yōichi Midorikawa (緑川 洋一, Midorikawa Yōichi; 1915–2001), birth name Satoshi Yokoyama (横山 知), was a Japanese photographer from Okayama prefecture, Japan, who became one of postwar Japan's leading figures in color landscape photography. He first took up the camera after graduating middle school in Okayama, but his father forced him into studying Dentistry. He returned to photography as a hobby around the same time he opened his own dentil clinic in 1937. Throughout his life, he maintained his base in Okayama. He later joined the Chūgoku Photographers Group, alongside figures such as Shoji Ueda, and Ginryūsha with Tadahiko Hayashi and Shōtarō Akiyama. HIs first work appear in monthly photo competitions in the 1930s. His early work, produced during the Pacific war, focused on photojournalism, followed by documentary photography depicting fishing villages, salt fields, rural communities around the Seto Inland Sea, and Osaka Merchant districts. From the 1950s onward, however, he turned to experimental forms of expression, employing techniques such as multiple exposure, long exposure, photomontage, filter works, and special film processing to create his dreamlike landscapes. He began using color film in the early 1960s, before it had come into widespread use. His breakthrough came with the1962 photobook Seto Inland Sea / Setonaikai, which won several awards from the Japan Photo Critics Association and the Photographic Society of Japan Award. Thereafter, he continued his exploration of landscape photography, taking photos of Japanese national parks and other natural sites throughout Japan. He is often described as a “magician of color.” Over the course of his career, he published more than seventy photobooks. Midorikawa's photographs have been widely exhibited in Japan and internationally, and his works are represented in major public collections such as the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Yokohama Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum. And the Bibliothèque national de France. Midorikawa's photographs were included in Donald Richie's travel memoir titled, The Inland Sea, about the region and its disappearing traditions. The exhibition Midorikawa Yoichi and his Circle: The Early Years, 1938-59, held at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art in 2005, sought to reexamine Midorikawa's early works in order to trace the process through which he developed the richly saturated colors, multiple exposures, and other experimental techniques that culminated in the landscape photographs of the 1960s, earning him the epithet the “magician of color.” Curator Naruhisa Hirose surveys Midorikawa ‘s first appearances in the photography magazine Shashin Salon to his various photo series from the 1950s, and his relationships to contemporaneous photographers including Shoji Ueda, Shōtarō Akiyama, Tadahiko Hayashi, and Takeji Iwamiya.
Famous People from Okayama Prefecture
Okayama Prefecture: 6 people
Mieko Kamiya (神谷 美恵子, Kamiya Mieko; January 12, 1914 – October 22, 1979) was a Japanese psychiatrist who treated…
Mieko Kamiya (神谷 美恵子, Kamiya Mieko; January 12, 1914 – October 22, 1979) was a Japanese psychiatrist who treated leprosy patients at Nagashima Aiseien Sanatorium. She was known for translating books on philosophy. She worked as a medical doctor in the Department of Psychiatry at Tokyo University following World War II. She was said to have greatly helped the Ministry of Education and the General Headquarters, where the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers stayed, in her role as an English-speaking secretary, and served as an adviser to Empress Michiko. She wrote many books as a highly educated, multi-lingual person; one of her books, titled On the Meaning of Life (ikigai ni tsuite in Japanese), based on her experiences with leprosy patients, attracted many readers.
Yukiharu Miki (三木 行治, Miki Yukiharu; 1 May 1903 – 21 September 1964) was a Japanese physician and politician. He served…
Yukiharu Miki (三木 行治, Miki Yukiharu; 1 May 1903 – 21 September 1964) was a Japanese physician and politician. He served as Governor for the Okayama Prefecture from 3 May 1951 until his death on 21 September 1964. During his period as governor, the prefecture went through considerable modernisation, becoming an important industrial district. Yukiharu Miki was awarded the 1964 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.
Michihiko Hachiya (蜂谷道彦, Hachiya Michihiko; 1903 in Okayama Prefecture - 1980) was a Japanese physician who survived…
Michihiko Hachiya (蜂谷道彦, Hachiya Michihiko; 1903 in Okayama Prefecture - 1980) was a Japanese physician who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945. He kept a personal diary of his experience in the aftermath of the bombing which was later published as Hiroshima Diary in 1955.
Toho University (東邦大学, Tōhō Daigaku) is a university in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.
Sahachirō Hata (秦 佐八郎, Hata Sahachirō; March 23, 1873 – November 22, 1938) was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who…
Sahachirō Hata (秦 佐八郎, Hata Sahachirō; March 23, 1873 – November 22, 1938) was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who researched the bubonic plague under Kitasato Shibasaburō and assisted in developing the antisyphilitic drug arsphenamine in 1909 in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich. Hata received three unsuccessful nominations for the Nobel Prize, one from Swiss surgeon Emil Kocher for Chemistry in 1911 and two by Japanese colleagues Hayazo Ito and G Osawa for Physiology or Medicine in 1912 and 1913, respectively.