Mother’s 25 March 1916 #53 [breast]

2000, printed 2018

Not on view

One of Japan’s preeminent photographers, Ishiuchi is known for work that explores trauma, loss, and the traces of time’s passage in the context of postwar Japan. These five photographs belong to her series, “Mother’s,” which she began in 2000, shortly before her mother, with whom she had a strained relationship, passed away at age 84. Over the course of several years, Ishiuchi photographed clothing, makeup, and other personal effects that belonged to her mother, a strong-willed woman who came of age in colonial Manchuria in the 1930s and worked as a truck driver in wartime Japan. Printed at varying scales in both color and black-and-white, the photographs evoke a posthumous intimacy in which objects are transformed into potent repositories of human touch.

Artwork Details

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Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Mother’s 25 March 1916 #53 [breast]
Artist: Ishiuchi Miyako (Japanese, born Gunma, 1947)
Date: 2000, printed 2018
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 42 1/2 × 29 1/2 in. (108 × 74.9 cm)
Framed: 43 1/2 × 30 1/2 in. (110.5 × 77.5 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2018
Object Number: 2018.571
Rights and Reproduction: © Ishiuchi Miyako
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

By Ishiuchi Miyako

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From the same time and place

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Scar #19, Illness-1964, Kyoto, Ishiuchi Miyako Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Scar #19, Illness-1964, Kyoto
Ishiuchi Miyako
1996

Scar #22, Illness-1984, New York, Ishiuchi Miyako Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Scar #22, Illness-1984, New York
Ishiuchi Miyako
1996

Mother’s #36 [lipstick], Ishiuchi Miyako Japanese, Chromogenic print — Mother’s #36 [lipstick]
Ishiuchi Miyako
2002, printed 2018

Mother’s #3 [photograph], Ishiuchi Miyako Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Mother’s #3 [photograph]
Ishiuchi Miyako
2000, printed 2005

Mother’s #19 [comb], Ishiuchi Miyako Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Mother’s #19 [comb]
Ishiuchi Miyako
2001, printed 2005

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