Hiroji Kubota Photographer

Over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years, Magnum photographer Hiroji Kubota has spent his life traveling extensively and documenting the world around him. From his coverage of the Black Panther Party in the mid-1960s to his incomparable access to North Korea, Kubota has prolifically captured the histories of diverse cultures throughout the world. This sumptuous visual biography encompasses the best images of his life's work, broken down into chapters, with illuminating narrative texts throughout. Rooted in his experience of a Japan ravaged by destruction and famine at the end of World War II, Kubota's work is characterized by a desire to find beauty and honor in human experience. Hiroji Kubota Photographer includes all of Kubota's key bodies of work, including his many extended trips to China, Burma, the United States, and North and South Korea, as well as his home country, Japan.

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 512
Publication date: 2015-09-29
Measurements: 9.4 x 12 x 1.9 inches
ISBN: 9781597112857

Wherever Mr. Kubota worked he maintained a Japanese aesthetic sensibility—and a passion to create beauty that was his reaction to growing up in devastated postwar Japan. – The Wall Street Journal

The new Aperture monograph Hiroji Kubota Photographer is a stunning document. In more than 500 large, luscious pages, it provides a showcase for a pageant of images offering a concentrated examination of the camera’s power to record and reveal, and of the vision of a skilled photographer who seemed, almost instinctively, to have been in the right place at the right time over and over and again. – Hyperallergic

…serves as a compelling starting point for exploring the themes, inquisitive spirit and technical innovations that characterized some of the most original documentary-photography artists of postwar Japan – Hyperallergic

It’s the work of a photographer for whom making an excellent picture seems second nature. – Mother Jones

Kubota gives us a truly unique look at the transition of the world from the tumultuous ’60s to the 2000s. – Mother Jones

Hiroji Kubota began his career by assisting photographers René Burri, Burt Glinn, and Elliott Erwitt on their visit to Japan in 1961. In 1965 he joined Magnum Photos, producing major bodies of work, many in book form, on the United States, Japan, China, North and South Korea, and Southeast Asia. His numerous publications include From Sea to Shining Sea: A Portrait of America (1992) and Out of the East: Transition and Tradition in Asia (1999).
Alison Nordström (introductory essay) is an independent scholar, curator, and writer. She was senior curator of photographs at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, from 2004 to 2013. She is currently scholar-in-residence at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; curator for international programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, Massachusetts; and artistic director of Fotofestiwal Łódz in Poland.
Elliott Erwitt has made some of the most memorable photographs of our time, from his observations of daily life to portraits of iconic personalities, including Marilyn Monroe and Che Guevara. Erwitt has produced more than twenty-five books, including Eastern Europe (1965), To the Dogs (1992), Personal Best (2010), and Kolor (2013).
Mark Lubell is executive director of the International Center of Photography, New York. He served as director of Magnum Photos, New York, between 2004 and 2011.
Chris Book is executive director of Aperture Foundation, New York. He was previously director of Magnum Photos, London and New York, editorial director at Phaidon Press, and publisher of his own list of photobooks, Chris Boot Ltd.