[Hat and Clock on Wall, Japan]

Shomei Tomatsu Japanese

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 232

On September 26, 1959, a typhoon with record-setting winds struck the area of Ise Bay in central Japan. 5,000 people perished, and some 1.5 million were left homeless, including the artist’s family. Tōmatsu explored the typhoon’s devastation in two series from late 1959, beginning with a series focused the impact of flood damage on rural life. Begun shortly thereafter, his photographs from House, Amakusa hint at lives led and lost in the space of a single devastated and abandoned home in a town in Kumamoto Prefecture.

On view for rotation 4.

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