Kusakabe Kimbei (日下部金兵衛; 1841–1934) was a Japanese

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name.

Career

Kusakabe Kimbei worked with

Felice Beato Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, ...

and

Baron Raimund von Stillfried Baron Raimund von Stillfried, also known as Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Rathenitz (6 August 1839, in Komotau, Bohemia – 12 August 1911, in Vienna, Austrian-Hungarian Empire), was an Austrian military officer and early professional photographer i ...

as a photographic

colourist In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is ...

and assistant. In 1881, Kimbei opened his own workshop in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, in the Benten-dōri quarter. From 1889, the studio operated in the Honmachi quarter. By 1893, his was one of the leading Japanese studios supplying art to Western customers. Many of the photographs in the studio's catalogue featured depictions of Japanese women, which were popular with tourists of the time. Kimbei preferred to portray female subjects in a traditional

bijinga is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women () in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre. Definition defines as a picture that simply "emphasizes the beauty of women", and the ''Shincho Encyclopedia of W ...

style, and hired

geisha {{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha {{nihongo, Geisha, 芸者 ({{IPAc-en, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ʃ, ə; {{IPA-ja, ɡeːɕa, lang), also known as {{nihongo, , 芸子, geiko (in Kyoto and Kanazawa) or {{nihongo, , 芸妓, geigi, are a class of female ...

to pose for the photographs. Many of his albums are mounted in

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

fashion. Around 1885, Kimbei acquired the negatives of

and of Stillfried, as well as those of

Uchida Kuichi was a pioneering Japanese people, Japanese photographer from Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Nagasaki. He was greatly respected as a portrait photographer and was the only photographer granted a sitting to photograph the Emperor Meiji. Uchida was adopted ...

. Kusakabe also acquired some of

Ueno Hikoma was a pioneer Japanese photographer, born in Nagasaki. He is noted for his fine portraits, often of important Japanese and foreign figures, and for his excellent landscapes, particularly of Nagasaki and its surroundings. Ueno was a major figure ...

's negatives of

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

. Kimbei retired as a photographer in 1914.

Gallery

Image:Country Children Kusakabe Kimbei.jpg, ''Country children'' File:Kusakabe Kimbei - 232 Kago Travelling Chair.jpg, ''Kago Travelling Chair'' File:Kusakabe Kimbei - 395 Wringing the Tealeaves on the Furnace.jpg, ''Wringing the Tealeaves on the Furnace'' File:Kusakabe Kimbei - Writing Letter (large).jpg, ''Writing Letter'' (also known as ''Letter Writer'') File:KITLV - 110644 - Kusakabe, Kimbei - Yumoto lake at Nikkō, Tochigi (日光市), Japan - circa 1890.tif, ''Yumoto lake at Nikkō, Tochigi (日光市), Japan'' File:KITLV - 110658 - Kusakabe, Kimbei - Buddha statue at Hakone in Japan - circa 1890.tif, ''Buddha statue at Hakone, Japan'' File:KITLV - 110662 - Kusakabe, Kimbei - Bell of Daibutsu in Kyoto in Japan - circa 1890.tif, ''Bell of Daibutsu in Kyoto'' File:KITLV - 110673 - Kusakabe, Kimbei - Japanese woman in jinrikisha at Japan - circa 1890.tif, ''Japanese woman in jinrikisha'' File:Fuji.jpg, View of

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

. Hand-coloured albumen silver print, 1880.

References

Musée Nicéphore Niépce; Collection du musée Niépce. ''Thé/Laque/Photographie''
Accessed 3 April 2006.
Nagasaki University Library; Japanese Old Photographs in Bakumatsu-Meiji Period: "Kusakabe, Kinbei"
Accessed 30 May 2008. * Turner, Jane, ed. ''

The Dictionary of Art ''Grove Art Online'' is the online edition of ''The Dictionary of Art'', often referred to as the ''Grove Dictionary of Art'', and part of Oxford Art Online, an internet gateway to online art reference publications of Oxford University Press, ...

'', vol. 18 (New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996), 534.
Union List of Artist Names, s.v. "Kimbei, Kusakabe"
Accessed 3 April 2006.

External links

* Old Photos of Japan
Kusakabe Kimbei
A selection of photographs by Kusakabe, with footnoted descriptive text. Accessed 28 May 2009. * I Photo Central
Kusakabe Kimbei
A selection of photographs by Kusakabe. Accessed 30 May 2008.

At the

Freer Gallery of Art The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sac ...

and

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. Th ...

Archives. * ttps://www.fostinum.org/kusakabe-kimbei.html Fostinum: Photographs by Kusakabe Kimbei* Photos of Japan
Kusakabe Kimbei
A collection of Japanese prints by Kusakabe Kimbei.
Kusakabe Kimbei, photographs

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a Architecture museum, museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between r ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kusakabe, Kimbei 1841 births 1930s deaths Japanese photographers Portrait photographers