object-label - Tumblr blog

[object-label]

Kusakabe Kimbei 日下部 金兵衛 (1841-1934) 

For our first object label post, I wanted to highlight a Meji-era photographer, Kusakabe Kimbei.

A photographer primarily based in Yokohama, Kusakabe Kimbei’s work was very popular with foreign visitors and as a result can be found in many notable collections outside of Japan. He received much of his photography training in Yokohama working as a colorist and assistant under the ateliers of Felice Beato (1832-1909) and Baron Raimund von Stillfried (1839-1911) during the 1860’s and 1870’s. His studio was active from 1881 to 1914, and at its height had two locations in Yokohama and one in Tokyo.

His work poetically captures 19th century Japan and reflects and builds on Beato’s style. The high painterly quality of his oeuvre is seen in the graceful composition of the photograph below, ethereally hand-tinted and printed on albumen paper.  

Image: Kusakabe Kimbei (日下部 金兵衛). 723. Autumn View of Maples, Oji, Tokio. c. 1895. Hand-tinted albumen print. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  

Like many photographers in Japan of the time, his photographic compositions often make references to the world of prints - seeing as his foreign clientele would be already familiar with the print works like those of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Utamaro.

This photograph, 723. Autumn View of Maples, Oji, Tokio, in particular references the famous autumn maple leaves in Takinogawa. This particular view seems to highlight a view from Oji Inari Shrine.

Image: Totoya Hokkei (魚屋 北渓). Autumn Maples at the Takinogawa River, ca. 1833. Color woodblock print on paper, . Brooklyn Museum.

Image: Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林 清親). Takinogawa Köyö瀧の川紅葉, ca. 1880. Color woodblock print on paper, . Honolulu Museum of Art.

Further Reading:

Bennett, Terry. Early Japanese Images. Rutland: Tuttle, 1996. 

Wakita, Mio. Staging Desires: Japanese Femininity in Kusakabe Kimbei’s Nineteenth Century Souvenir Photography. Berlin: Reimer, Dietrich, 2013. 

Dobson, Sebastian, Anne Nishimura Morse, and Frederic Alan Sharf. Art and Artifice: Japanese  Photographs of the Meiji Era. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts, 2004. 

Cabrejas Almena, M. Carmen. “Fotografía de ficción en Japón en el siglo XIX. Recreaciones de escenas  para el mercado Occidental”. Anales de Historia del Arte 19: pg. 257-270, 2009