“MÄRCHEN OF THE SETO INLAND SEA”
Photos by Yoichi Midorikawa, Magician of Light

About the exhibition

The Photo History Museum at FUJIFILM SQUARE will be showing works by acclaimed postwar Japanese photographer Yoichi Midorikawa, considered by many a “magician of color and light”.

Though having lived his entire life in Okayama, Yoichi Midorikawa (1915 – 2001) was a pioneering photographer who constantly sought new modes of expression. After trying his hand at photojournalism during the Pacific War, he began transforming actual landscapes into surreal illusions in the 1950s, by skillfully wielding multiple exposures, time-elapsed exposures, photomontages, special film development, filters and other techniques he mastered over the years. His curiosity for novelty segued into an ambitious pursuit of color expression in the early 1960s when color film was not yet widespread, resulting in his photobook “The Seto Inland Sea” (「BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA」, 1962) being recognized with the Japanese Society of Photography Critics Prize and landing him the Photographer of the Year Award from the Photographic Society of Japan.

Midorikawa went on to show large-format landscape works of Japan's national parks and imperial gardens, and author over 70 nature-centric photobooks in his lifetime. Yet, arguably his best works -- and certainly the most copious in terms of subject matter -- are those he took in and around the Seto Inland Sea area. An open-hearted believer that, of all the places in the world, “the Seto Inland Sea is the most beautiful,” * Midorikawa drew much of his highly unique, experimental expression from the sea he gazed upon since childhood.

This exhibition will comprise mostly color photos of the Seto Inland Sea but will also include some black-and-white works from Midorikawa's early years and images from one of his late works “Hana Asobi” (「tohoshuppan」, 1998). The surreal illusions depicted in Midorikawa's original film photos will be remastered on silver-halide print using the latest digital technology.

* “The Seto Inland Sea” (「BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA」)