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Hibakusha Tomitarō Shimotani, Nagasaki

Hibakusha Tomitarō Shimotani, Nagasaki

Shomei Tomatsu
Japanese, 1930–2012
1961
A gelatin silver photograph that captures a man pulling a shirt over his head, the photographer turning a simple, private gesture into an intense, portrait-like study.
What strikes you is the high-contrast arresting crop—the pale fabric sweeping across a shadowed torso against a textured wall—freezing the motion so the body reads like an abstract field of light and shadow.
Created in the early 1960s, the image exemplifies a turn in postwar Japanese photography toward intimate, confrontational images that address memory, the body, and the aftereffects of history in a new, personal language.
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
13 × 18 3/4" (33 × 47.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the artist
Accession
403.1977
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
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