Japanese Canadian National Museum presents a touring exhibition from the Japan Foundation

KATSURA

The Photographs of Ishimoto Yasuhiro

June 5 - August 7, 2010

At National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Centre, 1^st and 2^nd floor

Japanese Canadian National Museum presents KATSURA – The Photographs of Ishimoto Yasuhiro , opening June 5, 2010 at the National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Centre, located at 6688 Southoaks Crescent in Burnaby, BC, and continuing until August 7. 

Photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro (b. 1921) is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential figures in the development of postwar Japanese photography. Among his most celebrated bodies of work, his photographs of the legendary 17^th century Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto infuse images of the iconic structure with a New Bauhaus aesthetic. This exhibition of 50 black and white photographs presents Ishimoto’s attempt to liberate tradition through a contemporary view point.

Works: 50 framed Photographs of Gelatin Silver Print from Katsura Villa , Iwanami Shoten (1983)

(Collection of The Japan Foundation)

ISHIMOTO YASUHIRO

Ishimoto was born in San Francisco, 1921 then moved to Kochi Prefecture, Japan, with his parents in 1924. After graduating from Kochi Prefecture Agricultural High School, he returned to the United States in 1939 and was detained in a Colorado internment camp in 1942. In 1948, he entered the Photography Department of the Chicago Institute of Design where he studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. After graduation, he returned to Japan in 1953 where he began photographing Katsura . His book on the subject was published in 1960. Ishimoto became a professor at the Tokyo University of Art and Design in 1966. He has had his work displayed in numerous solo exhibitions, including New Japanese Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1996, Ishimoto was given the Person of Cultural Merit Award by the Japanese government.

The Japanese Canadian National Museum communicates to all the Japanese Canadian experience and contribution as an integral part of Canada’s heritage and multicultural society. www.jcnm.ca

National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre

6688 Southoaks Crescent

Burnaby, BC  V5E 4M7

604.777.7000
www.nikkeiplace.org