, is a Japanese

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

. In 2005, she represented Japan at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

. In March 2014, she received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Ishiuchi's work is included in the collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

Life and work

Ishiuchi was born March 27, 1947, in Nitta District, Gunma, Japan, and raised in

Yokosuka, Kanagawa is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 373,797, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th-most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city is ...

. She graduated from Yokosuka City Public High school and was admitted to the design department at

Tama Art University or is a private Art school, art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) fou ...

, where she specialized in textile dying and weaving. She left the department in her second year. Ishiuchi grew up in Kiryu and Yokosuka, home to the largest naval base in the East. There, she remained until she was 19. "The scars of adolescence that I sustained there had a big effect on me, and you could say that Yokosuka was the starting point for my photography," the artist tells ''Ocula Magazine'' in 2021. Ishiuchi began photographing with one of the most renowned generations in Japanese photography, which included such photographers as Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu. These photographers were dealing with postwar trauma while also exploring new directions in photography for the new, postwar era. Ishiuchi has produced full collections of

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

since the late 1970s. Her first photo series was a study of Yokosuka, ''Yokosuka Stories'' (1976–1977), documenting the city where she grew up. While working with them, Ishiuchi organized the all-women photography exhibition ''Hyakka Ryoran'' at the Shimizu Gallery in 1976. In 1979, she won the Kimura Ihei Award for her photoalbum ''APARTMENT'' and her photography exhibition ''Apaato''. Her work favors the oversize grainy prints and gritty subject matter that characterize the pictures of many photographers in the late 1960s and 1970s who preferred the ''are-bure,'' or grainy-blurry.Photography Review; Moments of Ravaging Time
, ''New York Times,'' May 19, 2000. Accessed 6 August 2008. She began to take close-ups of the bodies of the very old in the early 1990s. More recently, her photographs have addressed themes of skin, clothing, and time. In ''Hiroshima'' (2008), she photographed the clothes of victims from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In ''Frida: Love and Pain'' (2012), she was invited by the Frida Kahlo Museum in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

to photograph

Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country' ...

's personal artifacts, including corsets, clothing, shoes, rings, combs and other accessories, makeup, and medicines. In 2022, she held her first show in Scotland at

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

's Stills studio. The exhibition showed selected photographs from her previous series ''Mother's'', ''Hiroshima'' and ''Frida''.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* ''Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows'', Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, October 2015 – February 2016. A retrospective. * ''Grain and Shadow'', Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan, December 2017 – March 2018. A retrospective. * ''Ishiuchi Miyako'', Stills, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 2022 – October 2022.

Group exhibitions

* 1994: ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'', Guggenheim Museum, New York * 2005:

* 2016–2017: ''Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now,'' San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

Awards

* 1979: Kimura Ihei Award * 1999: Higashikawa Prize, Domestic Photographer Prize * 1999: Society of Photography Award * 2006:

Photographic Society of Japan The is an organization set up in December 1952 to advance photography in Japan. Its membership of about 1,400 includes both amateur and professional photographers, as well as researchers, critics, and people in the photographic industry. Its addr ...

* 2009: Mainichi Art Award * 2013: Medal of Honor, Purple Ribbon * 2014: Hasselblad Award, Hasselblad Foundation

Collections

Ishiuchi's work is held in the following public collections: *

, New York * J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ishiuchi, Miyako 1947 births Living people Japanese contemporary artists Fine art photographers People from Gunma Prefecture People from Yokosuka, Kanagawa Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon 20th-century Japanese photographers 20th-century Japanese women photographers 21st-century Japanese women photographers 21st-century Japanese photographers Artists from Gunma Prefecture