Shōmei Tōmatsu

Shōmei Tōmatsu (東松 照明, Tōmatsu Shōmei^?, January 16, 1930 – December 14, 2012) was a Japanese photographer.

Born in Nagoya in 1930, Tōmatsu studied economics at Aichi University, graduating in 1954. While still a student, he had his photographs published by the major Japanese photography magazines. He entered Iwanami and worked on the series Iwanami Shashin Bunko. Two years later, he left in order to freelance.

In 1959, Tōmatsu formed Vivo with Eikoh Hosoe and Ikkō Narahara. Two years later, his and Ken Domon's book Hiroshima–Nagasaki Document 1961, on the effects of the atomic bombs, was published to great acclaim.

In 1972, he moved to Okinawa; in 1975, his prizewinning book of photographs of Okinawa, Pencil of the Sun (太陽の鉛筆, Taiyō no enpitsu) was published.

Tōmatsu moved to Nagasaki in 1998.

Tōmatsu died in Naha (Okinawa) on 14 December 2012 (although this was not publicly announced until January 2013).

Tōmatsu has had various retrospectives, both within Japan and abroad. In the early years of the new century he embarked on a new and comprehensive series of retrospectives, dividing his oeuvre into five "mandalas" of place:

Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation, a retrospective, was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and curated by Sandra Phillips and the photographer and writer Leo Rubinfien. The exhibition toured internationally from 2004 through 2006: Japan Society, New York (September 2004 – January 2005), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (January – April), Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, D.C. (May – August), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (February–May 2006), Fotomuseum Winterthur (September–November 2006).

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