Tomatsu Shomei
From Asian Art Documentation
Shomei Tomatsu
[edit] About
Shōmei Tōmatsu (東松照明, Tōmatsu Shōmei?, b. 1930) is a Japanese photographer.
Born Teruaki Tōmatsu (東松照明, Tōmatsu Teruaki?) in Nagoya in 1930, Tōmatsu studied economics at Aichi University, graduating in 1954. While still a student, he had his photographs published by the major Japanese photography magazines. He entered Iwanami and worked on the series Iwanami Shashin Bunko. Two years later he left in order to freelance.
In 1959 Tōmatsu formed Vivo with Eikoh Hosoe and Ikkō Narahara. Two years later, his and Ken Domon's book Hiroshima–Nagasaki Document 1961, on the effects of the atomic bombs, was published to great acclaim.
In 1972 he moved to Okinawa; in 1975 his prizewinning book of photographs of Okinawa, Pencil of the Sun (太陽の鉛筆, Taiyō no enpitsu) was published.
Tōmatsu moved to Nagasaki in 1998. He has had various retrospectives, both within Japan and abroad.
