Ishiuchi Miyako: Bittersweet Beauty

A fifty-year career retrospective of Ishiuchi Miyako, Japan’s most influential living female photographer.

The Japanese photography scene, like elsewhere, has been male-dominated. Internationally, the best-known artists are men: Araki Nobuyoshi, Moriyama Daido, Hosoe Eikoh. There are, however, major female practitioners who have been pushing boundaries and breaking taboos with their work for decades: Ishiuchi Miyako leads the way.

Published at a watershed moment of recognition, Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces charts the course of Ishiuchi's photographic practice over fifty years, from the 1970s to the present day. It presents her oeuvre thematically, interweaving her images with contextual essays, interviews and Ishiuchi's own writings. This book features Ishiuchi's key photographic series as well as lesser-known works.

Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces organizes the groundbreaking photographer’s work into three themes, each with introductory essays: Town, Skin & Scars, and Things Left Behind. These themes resurface throughout her career, from her personal and political identity, the passage of time and the bodies and possessions of people, to her relationship with place and location. Alongside are in-depth interviews with Ishiuchi by Lena Fritsch, extracts from Ishiuchi’s previous writings, and a new essay by Ishiuchi written exclusively for this book.

The long-awaited retrospective, Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces is an essential publication for all who follow and collect Japanese photography.