Naha, Okinawa
2007 · Inkjet print
Image: 36.4 × 28.6 cm (14 3/8 × 11 5/16 in.); Paper: 48.3 × 33 cm (19 1/16 × 13 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Shomei Tomatsu
Artist
Printmaking
Representation
None documented
4
Institutional Exhibitions
77
Works in Collection
120
Assets Indexed
0
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
80%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
No movements recorded
Related Artists
No edges recorded
Influence Graph
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Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
Contemporary Photography Reinstallation
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1986
No image
Reinstallation of the Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1980
No image
Edward Steichen Photography Center Reinstallation
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1979
No image
New Japanese Photography
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1974
About
Why this artist matters now
Shomei Tomatsu was a Japanese photographer who documented postwar Japan through black-and-white images that combined documentary precision with modernist formal rigor. His work from the 1950s and 1960s captured the material traces of American occupation, industrial transformation, and urban surfaces, creating a visual archive of Japan's reconstruction and cultural displacement. Tomatsu's photographs treat war debris and everyday scenes with equal intensity, revealing the texture and contradiction embedded in Japan's rapid modernization.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 25d ago
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Medium
Printmaking
Related Artists
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Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (77)
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Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
Record