Ei-Q

Ei-Q (瑛九, Eikyū, April 28, 1911 – March 10, 1960, in English occasionally "Q. Ei" or "Ei Kyu") was a Japanese artist who worked in a variety of media, including photography and engraving.

Ei-Q, whose early work was done under his real name of Hideo Sugita (杉田 秀夫, Sugita Hideo), was born in Miyazaki-machi (now Miyazaki City), Miyazaki Prefecture on 28 April 1911. In 1925 Sugita entered an art school in Tokyo to study western-style painting, and his criticism of western art started appearing in the art magazines Atelier and Mizue in 1927, in which year he also left the school. In 1930 he entered a photography school and from then on pursued both painting and photography and more particularly photograms, first experimenting briefly with these in 1930, then dropping them in pursuit of painting, and then returning to them in 1936.

Ei-Q was influenced by the Surrealist aesthetic and also published essays promoting photography as an art form independent of painting. This did not imply a rejection of painting, and he worked toward what in 1935 he termed photo-dessins, a fusion of photograms and paintings. A first collection of these, published in an edition of 40 in 1936 as Nemuri no riyū (眠りの理由, "the reason for sleep"), took him to the forefront of the Japanese avant garde. Akiko Okatsuka rates Ei-Q (as he had named himself in 1935), together with Sutezō Otono, as standing out among the many Japanese exponents of photograms, unlike the majority able to use them for expressive rather than merely playful ends. Ei-Q also contributed photograms and photography criticism to Photo Times. (Ei-Q also became an enthusiastic proponent of Esperanto at about the same time.)

Ei-Q set up the art organization Jiyū Bijutsu Kyōkai (自由美術協会) in 1937; this lasted until 1951.

Ei-Q was able to resume his work after the war and in 1951 set up the group Democratic Artists Association (デモクラート美術家協会, Demokurāto Bijutsuka Kyōkai) in Osaka. Membership was by invitation only, but the idea was to promote the free expression of members, who included woodblock artists, designers, photographers and others. On Ei-Q's move from Osaka to Urawa later in the same year, the group set up a branch in nearby Tokyo as well; Eikoh Hosoe and Takeji Iwamiya then joined. The Association lasted until 1957, holding exhibitions of its works.

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