Yoshihiro Tatsuki Photo Exhibition
A Fallen Angel Contact Sheets: An Evolving Gaze

About the exhibition

The FUJIFILM SQUARE Photo History Museum is pleased to present an exhibition celebrating 60 years since the release of “A Fallen Angel” by the photographer Yoshihiro Tatsuki, who remains prolifically active at age 87. This exhibition features 25 newly selected gelatin silver prints and about 25 contact sheets^*1 from the same series, all shown publicly for the first time.

The photographs were taken in 1964, at the height of Japan's rapid economic growth period. At that time, Tatsuki was a staff photographer at the advertising production company Ad Center, where he distinguished himself in apparel advertising and in emerging magazines such as the weeklies Shukan Heibon and Heibon Punch.

Tatsuki's talent was recognized by Shoji Yamagishi, editor of Camera Mainichi magazine. Keenly attuned to the shifting photographic trends of the time, Yamagishi offered the young photographer a deal for a photographic feature in the magazine: no payment, but complete creative freedom. This gave rise to “A Fallen Angel,” starring the then 17-year-old model Noriko Yamazoe, who had an American father. The narrative told through photographs, which ingeniously combined improvisation with structured setups, appeared in the April 1965 issue of Camera Mainichi, filling an extraordinary 56 pages and causing a sensation that endures in the annals of Japanese photographic history.

The photo shoot captured Ms. Yamazoe moving freely through the streets, evoking the feel of an improvised, anything-goes session. For the magazine layout, illustrator Makoto Wada skillfully arranged about 200 prints in the style of a photo book. Commentary was provided by critic Shinichi Kusamori, while poet and playwright Shuji Terayama accompanied the photographs with poems. The Japanese title, “Shitadashi Tenshi,” meaning “Angel with Tongue Sticking Out,” was Terayama's suggestion, and was inspired by the final page's snowy scene, in which the model holds a portrait photo with her tongue protruding.

Contact sheets are prints that condense a sequence of images on a single page in the order they were shot. These sheets are typically used to select shots that make the final cut, and are not usually shown to the public. It is for just this reason that they serve as such a vivid record of collaboration between artist and subject, documenting their ideas, movements, and interactions. Through varied scenes and ever-changing expressions, we invite you to trace the evolving gaze of Yoshihiro Tatsuki as a youthful photographer.

*1 contact sheet is a print made by cutting a roll of black-and-white or color photographic film into 4 to 6 strips, arranging them on a single sheet of photographic paper, and then producing a print at a 1:1 scale. This enables viewing of developed negatives as positive images. It is also known by other names, including “contact print.”