Untitled
Watanabe Katsumi was an itinerant portrait photographer who worked in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo during the 1960s and 1970s, or more exactly, the blue light district of Kabukicho that was populated nightly with Yakuza (gang members), transvestites, and prostitutes. He moved to Tokyo in 1962, apprenticed for several years in a prestigious portrait studio there, and then with permission from his teacher, began to set out each night offering his services to these denizens of the night. His pictures, made with a strobe flash, were by necessity collaborative--his subjects had to be happy with their likenesses before handing over his set fee of "200 yen for three prints". Watanabe received some critical attention in the early 1970s, and published monographic surveys from then through the late 1990s, but his esteem was always most keenly felt by fellow photographers such as Daido Moriyama and Nobiyoshi Araki, who hailed him as a Japanese master. The four photographs being acquired here, from negatives made in the late 1960s but printed twenty years later, exemplify Watanabe's great talent for extracting a sense of vulnerability or at least depth beneath the bluster of their social roles.
Artwork Details
- Title: Untitled
- Artist: Katsumi Watanabe (Japanese, 1941–2006)
- Date: 1967, printed before 1985
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 11 1/8 × 7 7/16 in. (28.2 × 18.9 cm)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Hideyuki Osawa Gift, 2016
- Object Number: 2016.450
- Rights and Reproduction: © Katsumi Watanabe
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Katsumi Watanabe
1966, printed before 1985
Katsumi Watanabe
1969, printed before 1985
Katsumi Watanabe
1968, printed before 1985
Kohei Yoshiyuki
1971
Hiroshi Sugimoto
1993
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.