Introduction
I chose Tomatsu as the focus of my midterm research project based on several considerations.
- As a Japanese cultural enthusiast, I wanted to understand Japanese photography more deeply to compare and contrast his works relative to other notable photographers presented in this course.
- Based on a preliminary scan, I found the subject matter of his photographs intriguing as he attempted to capture the consequential cultural and social impact of warfare.
- Many of Tomatsu’s photographs appear to be influenced by his observations during his childhood, which interestingly provides a candid glimpse of life after the war.
Tomatsu's Background
Born in Nagoya, Japan, on January 16, 1930, Tomatsu’s early childhood overlapped with World War II, which occurred from 1939 to 1945. His personal experiences were notable and unpredictable. “He refused to retreat to a bomb shelter during the air raids and instead, hid in his room, transfixed. He remembered turning a tall mirror toward the window, and observing the aerial assaults reflected in the glass surface. He found the enemy aircraft to be strangely alluring but felt like a traitor for being mesmerized by the “pageant of light” unfolding before him” (Yeoh 97).
During these formative years, he was required to support the war as a steel factory laborer and was instructed continuously to dislike Western nations. His experiences during the American military occupation were dramatic and memorable. “I was fifteen-year-old boy with a great appetite, and the whole nation was hungry. Survival was the most we could hope for. Then all of a sudden the base appeared in town and within the base there was an affluence which we on the outside could never have imagined. There was another world behind the wire fences, where Japanese citizens were not allowed, while outside the whole town was dying of hunger” (Tomatsu 66).
After the war, he studied Economics at Aichi University and started his journey as a photographer. Although he never received formal training in photography, he pursued a photographic career, beginning as a freelancer and then gaining initial notoriety through exhibitions, during which he joined collectives with other photographers as they explored different art forms that would influence their artistic style. “When postwar came, what was the first thing to bounce back? Surrealism. You could go into these coffee shops and see these grotesque surrealist paintings, and Tomatsu absorbed a lot of that” (Yeoh 102). These experiences would help form a particular set of ideals and perspectives. “Tomatsu is a member of what he himself has called “the beliefless generation, deprived of myth, immune to propaganda, numb to his elders’ disappointment. His mission has been not to rediscover Japan, but to determine if a place exists” (Rexer 12).
Dismayed by the realist approach of his photojournalistic contemporaries in the 1960s, he spent roughly ten years making photographs of Japanese cities occupied by U.S. army bases. This would inform a photographic style that attempted to balance competing interests. “Instead, in their heyday, this generation tried to balance photography’s various potentials, straining to encompass both aesthetic innovation and public engagement, both individual experience and civic concerns, both the subjective and the objective” (Thomas 182).
He was eventually hired by an organization called the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs to photograph the city of Nagasaki, a landing site of one of the U.S. atomic bombs. His work would be included in a book titled Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Document, 1961, earning him Photographer of the Year by the Japan Photo Critics Association. At this point, he firmly moved from a photojournalistic approach to one of artistic subjectivity.
Despite his burgeoning success in Japan, he received little acclaim from Americans. Some critics commented, “He truncates objects from their contexts, flattens perspective into a single planar view, employs allusions to create temporal ambiguity and bring random elements together in unexpected ways” (Yeoh 105). However, this would not dissuade Tomatsu. In the 1960s, his series Chewing Gum and Chocolates reflects his early obsession with the ongoing influence of the U.S. military in Japan, capturing the interplay between Japanese citizens and American army men, which changed Japanese mentality and blurred cultural boundaries.
Tomatsu started a publishing company called Shaken in 1967 and a magazine called KEN, which focused on Japan’s increasing tendencies towards fascist ideals. In the 1970s, he visited Okinawa to write a book, Okinawa, Okinawa, Okinawa, presenting his concerns about the impacts of American military occupation. He would achieve awards along the way. In 1974, he participated in the first international exhibition of Japanese photographers called New Japanese Photography at the New York Museum of Modern Art. In the early 1980s, he led his first solo international exhibition showcased in nearly thirty locations over three years. In 1992, he was the first solo exhibition of a living Japanese artist. On December 14, 2012, Tomatsu died of pneumonia while living in the city of Okinawa.
Tomatsu's Photography
Tomatsu is mainly known for his photographs highlighting the consequential aftermath of the Japanese defeat in World War II, resulting in American military occupation for many years after that. His photographs were not traditional, nor were there a slight variation in the style of typical Japanese photography. “The images from this period are often deliberately awkward in their formal composition because, for Tomatsu and his contemporaries, honesty required an unaestheticized examination of the postwar world’s incongruities” (Thomas 183). This would force him to resist the temptation of comfortable and appealing photographs, instead, “what characterizes Tomatsu’s work here and elsewhere is the avid, almost obsessive, desire to explode postwar complacency and replace its vision of ordered comfort with an appreciation of the spontaneous, terrible, beautiful disorder of life beyond conventional pieties” (Thomas 181-182). His unique works, along with a few of his contemporaries, would eventually profoundly influence the future of Japanese photography.
Select Tomatsu Photographs
First Artwork: Time Stopped at 11:02, August 9, 1945, 1961.
US atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 when Tomatsu was roughly twelve years old, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens and effectively ending World War II. The arrival of the US military post-war brought about changes in a relatively insular Japanese culture, causing political uncertainty.
This black and white photograph presents what appears to be an antique watch face, which shows the time 11:02, which is the precise time when the first atomic bombs detonated in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 during World War II. The composition has the watch face centered in the foreground against an ominous gray organic-shaped cloud middle ground that appears to emanate or explode from the watch face. The photograph evokes a sense that time stands still upon an ominous event that not only would be detrimental upon explosion but also be remembered and felt for many years to come, as symbolized by the darkened gray background towards the top edge of the photograph.
Tomatsu conveys his unique style by using a simple watch face with shades of gray in the background to symbolize the end of World War II and the suffering of the Japanese people for years to come. He departs from conventional photojournalism and social realism to evoke feelings like pain, suffering, and tragedy without including people as the subject matter.
Second Artwork: Untitled, from series Chewing Gum and Chocolate, 1959
This photograph is from the series Chewing Gum and Chocolate, illustrating the aftermath of World War II. It represents the blurring of cultural boundaries, attempting to capture the somewhat romantic viewpoint of American culture, although combined with underlying resentment for the mass casualties of Japanese people and the destruction of their lands.
The black and white photograph, with a great depth field and use of the rule of thirds, presents an American military man dressed in formal uniform who is confidently standing on the sidewalk of a typical street alley, now covered with English signage representing the names of bars and clubs. In the foreground, we find a Japanese teenager blowing a sizeable transparent bubble that covers most of her upper torso and face. There is something perverse underlying this image… an adult American man standing in front of a bar or nightclub looking at an innocent female teenager enjoying the pleasures of American goods like bubble gum that American army men would pass out to Japanese children. “The work encompasses themes of the friction between American and traditional Japanese mores; the alien-presence of white and black soldiers in an otherwise homogeneous society, with a particular focus on the impact of US soldiers’ presence on traditional Japanese gender roles – its Americanization… the “Coca-Colonization” of the world” (Martin 60).
This imagery reminded Tomatsu of his childhood and his contradictory internal viewpoints of the presence of Amercian military men. Challenging the animosity that he was taught during his time in the steel factory, he “remembers receiving chocolate and chewing gum as a young boy in 1945 and 1946 from the servicemen in the streets around the bases, and I was most grateful because I was so hungry” (Tomatsu, 1984, pp. 66). This photograph captures the complexity of America’s military occupation of major Japanese cities.
Third Artwork: Untitled (Koza Okinawa), 1978
Similar to the prior photograph, this black and white cropped image portrays an adult female (subject matter) wearing a traditional kimono seated in the backseat of an automobile in Okinawa. Her body is angled towards the back window, yet her head is slightly bowed, with her narrowed eyes pointed away from the photographer. In the background, we see a sizeable horizontal sign in English words, highlighting the various activities that American men could observe, like a tea ceremony or fashion show. The sign’s reflection on the back window symbolizes the loss of the woman’s identity, overshadowed by what she represents from an American lens.
Tomatsu’s composition captures a perspective of American occupation post-war. “Of course, there were murders, rapes, and other crimes around the base. It is an unavoidable fact that an army, or a group of isolated men, will become concerned with sex. I was not photographing a sexual threat or danger. I was recording the reality of human beings.” (Tomatsu, 1984, pp. 66). This photograph captures the complex emotions of a traditional Japanese woman during different times.
Conclusion
Shomei Tomatsu challenged the traditional principles of realistic photojournalism to create a new photography style that used surrealism elements to create photographs that attempted to convey unspoken emotions symbolically. Typically, he would focus on subject matter rendered in simplified ways. “Shomei Tomatsu’s work served a critical purpose at a transitional moment in Japanese postwar photography: as a catalyst toward the rejection of a classic photojournalistic approach” (Martin 66). Along with a few of his contemporaries, he advanced the breadth of photography in Japan, allowing future photographers to explore new forms of expression, seeking the truth of feelings rather than traditional aesthetics.
By focusing his primary subject on post-World War II imagery, he highlighted an alternative Japanese perspective that centered on the suffering of the Japanese as humans. Whether or not one believes that the consequences of war are justified, there are two sides to every confrontation, and by highlighting the human impact, it becomes clearer that photographers can play a critical role in evoking reflection and instigating a conversation.
In the end, Tomatsu made a significant impact on Japanese photography. Perhaps his greatest impact is “helping to inspire and to inform generations of photographers, and in redefining – or refining – the language for describing what people were experiencing during the enormous conflicts in the postwar period” (Yeoh 105).
Suggested webpages
Below you will find an interview of Shomei Tomatsu during his later years, providing context and perspective of his photographic works by walking through his journey.
Below you will find a webpage made by photographer Eric Kim whom I think provided a nice summary of practical things that we, as aspiring photographers, can learn and use from Shomei Tomatsu.
Bibliography
1. Journal Articles
Martin, Lesley A. “Shomei Tomatsu: Occupation Okinawa.” Aperture, no. 208, 2012, pp. 66–73. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24474981. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.
Rexer, Lyle. “Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation.” Aperture, no. 178, 2005, pp. 12–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24478813. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.
Tomatsu, Shomei. “Occupation: The American Bases in Japan.” Aperture, no. 97, 1984, pp. 64–76. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24471452. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.
Yeoh, Peter. “The Sky in Flames: Photographs of Tomatsu Shomei.” Impressions, no. 34, 2013, pp. 96–107. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42597903. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.
2. Images
Moriyama. "Shomei Tomatsu." Phototrend, https://phototrend.fr/2020/12/zoom-photographe-shomei-tomatsu/.
"Mr. Shomei Tomatsu." Blogspot, https://visualdiplomacyusa.blogspot.com/2018/07/artist-of-day-july-12-shomei-tomatsu.html.
"Shomei Tomatsu." Museum of Modern Art, https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Shomei_Tomatsu/.
Shomei Tomatsu (Japanese, Nagoya, Japan 1930-2012 Naha, Japan). Time Stopped at 11:02, 1945, Nagasaki, 1961. 1961; printed 1991. Artstor, library-artstor-org.foothill.idm.oclc.org/asset/AWSS35953_35953_37654750. Accessed 4 February 2024.
Shomei Tomatsu, Untitled, from the series Chewing Gum and Chocolate. 1959; printed 2003. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/ST2004.0004/. Accessed 4 February 2024.
Shomei, Tomatsu. Untitled (Koza Okinawa). 1978; printed 1980. Getty, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/109JRZ. Accessed 4 February 2024.
3. Website Resources
Kim, Eric. “5 Lessons Shomei Tomatsu Has Taught Me About Photography.” Eric Kim, https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2016/08/12/5-lessons-shomei-tomatsu-has-taught-me-about-photography/. Accessed 4 February 2024.
“Shomei Tomatsu: The First Decade.” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/shomei-tomatsu-the-first-decade/. Accessed 4 February 2024.
Thomas, Julia Adeney. Review of Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation. The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 32 no. 1, 2006, p. 181-184. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/jjs.2006.0032.