Dec 11, 2014 - Sale 2370

Sale 2370 - Lot 264

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
WITH SHOMEI TOMATU'S RARE SIGNATURE DOMON, KEN & TOMATSU, SHOMEI.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Document 1961.
A masterful publication illustrated with dark gravure reproductions of Domon's and Tomatsu's photographs of the aftermath of the atomic bomb explosions. Square 4to, gray-stamped white boards; with the accompanying booklet of scientific and historical data laid in; card chemise and original printed card slipcase, lightly worn. Parr/Badger I 274. first edition, signed by tomatsu.
Np: The Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, 1961

Additional Details

Ken Domon's ascetic documentarian photographs (first seen in his book "Hiroshima" published three years earlier) paired with Tomatsu's more symbolic, expressive images rawly memorialize the trauma of the atomic bomb. In contrast to Domon, Tomatsu represents a younger generation looking for new, more expressive ways of representing the Japanese crisis. Tomatsu's "Nagasaki 11:02," published seven years later, revisited many of the images found here and fully realized these new, powerful tropes of representational photography.


The accompanying informational booklet by the Japan Council Against the Atomic & Hydrogen Bombs both balances and strengthens these artistic forces.