Lot 72: Tokyo, Shinagawa from 'Kotoshi no natsu' [This Summer], 1974

YANAGISAWA SHIN (b.1936)
Tokyo, Shinagawa from 'Kotoshi no natsu' [This Summer], 1974
gelatin silver print
signed, titled '"Kotoshi no Natsu" 4' and dated by photographer in Japanese, variously numbered in another hand in pencil on verso
7 1/8 x 10¾in. (18 x 27.3cm.)

Asahi Camera, October 1974, within feature 'Kotoshi no natsu', pp.182-83; Yanagimoto (ed.), Shashin: Yanagisawa Shin, Soshi Yamada, 1990, p.64; 'Yanagisawa Shin: Shashin ni kaeru' [Return to Photography], Time Tunnel Series Vol.14, Recruit, 2001, p.38.

Gift of the artist to editor of Asahi Camera, 1974;
via agent;
acquired by present owner.

JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE 1960

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, TOKYO

By limiting the function of photography to just observation and using the camera accordingly, one might be able to allow the photographed object to speak its words more freely on the paper.

YANAGISAWA SHIN, 1969
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
This is the actual print reproduced in the October 1974 issue of Asahi Camera and was gifted by Yanagisawa to the magazine's editor. The present lot is the fourth image out of the series of six taken in Tokyo in the summer of 1974 and is one of only a few vintage prints made of this subject.

A leading snapshot photographer, Yanagisawa favoured a straight documentary style and took photographs from the viewpoint of an observer. In this photograph, he captures the neglected façade of a billiard hall and creates a composition, consisting of various geometric shapes, in which the shadows take on a life of their own.

His works, along with those by 14 of his contemporaries, including Moriyama Daido, Takanashi Yutaka, Nakahira Takuma and Araki Nobuyoshi, were featured in the Fifteen Photographers exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo in 1974. Yanagisawa was also selected for the Contemporary Japanese Photographers Exhibition, a two-part exhibit (October 1976 & May 1977) at the Graz Municipal Art Museum in Austria. Photographers whose prints were exhibited include Kawada Kikuji, Suda Issei, Moriyama and Takanashi.