Shōji Ueda (1913-2000), one of Japanese photography’s most remarkable figures, remained profoundly attached to his birthplace of Tottori, on the Sea of Japan, which he used as a backdrop for the vast majority of his work.
Ueda was a sedentary adventurer, ceaselessly exploring the dunes that sculpted the landscape throughout the seasons. His keen eye was drawn to everything around him: a map of the world, a wheat field caressed by the wind, a boy in roller skates, the graceful figure of his wife, Norie…When Ueda wasn’t out wandering, he composed still lives of seasonal fruit and incongruous objects, small treasures found here and there.
This publication is the first trilingual monograph devoted to his work, and brings together a great many previously unpublished photographs, in both black and white and colour. For the occasion, Chose Commune (Paris) has given carte blanche to the writer Toshiyuki Horie (Yukinuma and Its Environs, The Bear And The Paving Stone), whose text is like musical notes resonating with the photographer’s distinctive universe.
188 pages, 22 x 29 cm, hardcover, Chose Commune (Paris).