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The Walk to Paradise Garden, 1946 © 2017 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith
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W. Eugene Smith: A Life in Photography

Nov. 25, 2017Jan. 28, 2018

  • Nov. 25, 2017Jan. 28, 2018
  • Closed Monday(if Monday is a national holiday or a substitute holiday, it is the next day) and Dec.29-Jan.1
  • Admission:Adults ¥ 1,000/College Students ¥ 800/High School and Junior High School Students, Over 65 ¥ 600

W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) is one of the greatest documentary photographers in the history of photography. He published many excellent photo-essays such as “Country Doctor,” “Spanish Village,” “Nurse Midwife,” and “A Man of Mercy,” mainly in the graphic magazine Life, leaving his distinguished achievements in photojournalism.

He had particularly close relations with Japan. At the age of seventeen, he was deeply impressed by pictures made by a Japanese-American photographer whom he met by chance in New York, which he said was an unforgettable event for him to make himself a photographer. During World War II, he served as a war correspondent in the Pacific theater, showed the real merciless horrors of war to the world with his pictures, and was seriously injured himself in the Battle of Okinawa. On Japan’s recovery after the war, Smith documented the giant corporation Hitachi as a symbol of the remarkable rebuilding of Japanese economy. He also covered dreadful environmental disaster as the other side of this rapid economic growth, standing by the victims of the pollution-caused disease in the fishing village of Minamata.

This retrospective exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of W. Eugene Smith’s birth. Here, very valuable 150 vintage prints are on exhibit thanks to the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography in which Smith deposited his works, negatives and other resources in his lifetime. We sincerely hope this will be a good opportunity for us all who live in this contemporary world flooded with information to look back at W. Eugene Smith’s landmark works in photojournalism.


Untitled Number 20, 1941


Civilians Driven from Natural Caves in the Saipan Mountains by U.S. Smoke Grenades, 1944


Dr. Ernest Ceriani providing emergency treatment for little girl kicked by horse, 1948


Three Generations of Welsh Miners, 1950


The Wake, 1950


Dr. Albert Schweitzer Marking Timbers during Construction Project, 1954

All works © 2017 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith

□Organized:Crevis 
□Co-organized by Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
□Supported by The Photographic Society of Japan, Japan Professional Photographers Society 
□Sponsored by NIKON CORPORATION, Nikon Imaging Japan Inc.
□With the cooperation of Center for Creative Photography, the University of Arizona, JAPAN AIRLINES

Events

Panel Talk on W. Eugene Smith (in English and Japanese)
Dec. 3 (Sun) 14:00~15:30 (Open 13:30)
Guest Speakers: Kevin Smith (W. Eugene Smith’s Son), Aileen M. Smith (Co-author of “MINAMATA”), Rebecca Senf (Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona)
Facilitator: Yoshio Tokuyama (Journalist)
190 Seats, 1F Hall, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
Admission Free
※Exhibition tickets required
※Numbered tickets distributed at Information counter from 10am on the day of the Panel Talk