Untitled from the portfolio APN (Asahi Picture News)
Shozo Kitadai
Japanese, 1921–2001
Kiyoji Otsuji
Japanese, 1923–2001
1953-54
A gelatin silver photograph in which Shozo Kitadai stages small objects into a sculptural still life, using composition and light to turn everyday materials into abstract forms.
What strikes you is the theatrical interplay of towering, horn‑like silhouettes and a fragile wood‑and‑wire object marked “APN,” rendered in deep blacks and soft gray gradations that sharpen shape, shadow, and spatial tension.
Made in the early 1950s, the image embodies a postwar modernist impulse in Japanese photography that used still life to invent abstract, sculptural realities and rethink the camera’s role as a creative, not merely documentary, tool.
Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed 2003
Dimensions
7 1/2 × 5 9/16" (19 × 14.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Shigeru Yokota
Accession
700.2012.3
Palette
Exhibitions
