(3 August 1905 – 1988) was a Japanese photographer noted for his

photogram A photogram is a Photography, photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow im ...

s and work in other techniques that were avant-garde at the time. Otono was born in 1905 in

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

. After graduating from Osaka City Public East Commercial High School, he started working at the

Yamaguchi Bank The is a Japanese regional bank, primarily in the Yamaguchi Prefecture. It has 156 branches and offices in Japan and four overseas offices. The bank's history dates back to 1878 when its predecessor, the Hyakuju (110th) National Bank was found ...

. In 1930, he began to participate in activities of the

Tampei Photography Club The was a group based in Osaka from 1930 until 1941 that promoted avant-garde and, toward the end, socially concerned photography. The group was founded around the photographer Bizan Ueda, among photographers who bought their supplies from the ...

and Zen Kansai Shashin Remei (All Kansai Photography Association"). He received numerous awards from the Nippon Dai Shashin Salon ("Japan Grand Photography Salon Competition"). A curator of the

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography The is an art museum concentrating on photography. As the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, it was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo. The museum also ...

, Akiko Okatsuka, notes that “Otono Sutezo and

Ei-Q was a Japanese artist who worked in a variety of media, including photography and engraving. Life and career Ei-Q, whose early work was done under his real name of Hideo Sugita (, ''Sugita Hideo''), was born in Miyazaki-machi (now Miyazaki City ...

stand out among the many Japanese photographers who explored the possibilities of the

technique.” Otono worked with these avant-garde photography techniques before World War II. His photographic subjects included plants and other living creatures. He also contributed articles on the subject of the photogram techniques to magazines such as ''Camera Club'' and ''Shashin Bunka'' ("Photography Culture"). Okatsuka expands on Otono's impact on the legacy of amateur photography clubs that would develop later in the

Kansai The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

area:

As the Showa era began, photographers became interested in techniques that made use of the distinctive characteristics of the photograph –
photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final imag ...
,
photogram A photogram is a Photography, photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow im ...
s, and
infrared photography In infrared photography, the photographic film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wav ...
, for instance. A steady stream of experimental photographs with new content appeared... Three hotographerswho deserve special note were NAKAYAMA Iwata, OTONO Sutezo and KOISHI Kiyoshi. The foundation on which they build their vast bodies of work were the amateur photographers’ clubs found throughout the country, such as the '' Naniwa Shashin Club'', the '' Tampei Shashin Club'' and the ''Ashiya Camera Club'' in the Kansai...

His works have been shown internationally at

Paris Photo Paris Photo is an annual international art fair dedicated to photography. It was founded in 1997, and is held in November at the Grand Palais exhibition hall and museum complex, located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement in Pari ...

and are included in the permanent collection of the

New Orleans Museum of Art The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest art museum, fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, New Orleans. It is situated within City Park (New Orleans), City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton ...

Exhibitions

* 1995: ''The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan'',

* 2018: ''Past Present Future: Building Photography at the New Orleans Museum of Art'',

* 2022: ''Avant-Garde Rising - The Photographic Vanguard in Modern Japan'',

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum The is an art museum concentrating on photography. As the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, it was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo. The museum also ...

References

External links

* Russell Lord,
Sutezo Otono
, New Orleans Museum of Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Otono, Sutezo 1905 births 1988 deaths 20th-century Japanese photographers People from Osaka Date of death missing