Group Exhibitions
1975 The History of Japanese Contemporary Photography
1945–1970; Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
1985 Japan 1971–1984: Man and Society; Seibu Art Forum,
Tokyo, Japan
1986 Beaute ́s du Japon: Coutumes populaires, folklore et modes
de vie; Mairie du 9e`mearrondissement, Paris, France
1987 Utsukushiki Nihon-The Beauty of Japan; Metropolitan
Teien Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1988 Beautiful Japan; Tokyo Municipal Garden Art
Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1992 A Day in Moscow, 1956; Nikon Salon, Shinjuku,
Tokyo , Japan
1996 Japanese Photography Form in/out. Part 2: The
Transformation of Photography in the Post-war 1945–
1980 ; Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo,
Japan
2001 Viva! Italia: il viaggio, l’arte e la dolce vita/ Viva! Fell-
ini: retropettiva di Fellini anni’50; Metropolitan Museum
of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
2003 Japon: un renouveau photographique;Ho ˆ tel de Sully,
Paris, France
Selected Works
Tokyo, 1945–1946
The Imperial Palace, 1949
People from the Country, Leningrad Station, 1956
Rome, 1956
Buddhist Temples, 1960
Imperial Hotel, 1969
Ise Shrine, 1973Further Reading
Etwall, Robert.Building with Light, The International History
of Architectural Photography.New York: Merrel, 2004.
Gilbert, Jeffrey, and Shigemori, Koen.NihonShashinZenshu
9: Minzoku to Dento(History of Japanese Photography)
vol. 9, Culture and Tradition. Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1987.
Niwan, Harumi, and Sawamoto Noriyoshi.Watanabe Yohio:
A Photographer’s View of People, Towns and Structures.
Tokyo: Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1996.
Tucker, Anne Wilkes.The History of Japanese Photogra-
phy. New Haven and Houston: Yale University Press
and Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, 2003.BOYD WEBB
New Zealand
Boyd Webb is one of New Zealand’s most interna-
tionally successful expatriate artists, best known for
his large scale, fantastical tableaux that suggest the
surreal and the science fictional. Webb should also be
recognized for his capacity to push analogue photo-
graphy into the realm of the illusory through sheer
technical virtuosity, particularly in light of the ubi-
quity of computer-manipulated photographs today.
As he has stated:
I have tried to make work on the scale of domestic doors,
hoping the viewer could metaphorically walk into the
picture, be sucked in and not notice the edges. What I
have wanted all along is to make images that resonate
with a universal appeal.
(Webb 1997, 66)
While at the University of Canterbury School of
Fine Art, Christchurch, Webb studied sculpture, but
used photography as a way to document a range of
his over-sized, outdoor, and performance works.
Webb’s final year submission has been described by
Jenny Harper as establishing themodus operandiof
his work to come, as the assessment situation was
turned into a performance. Rather than presenting
the work himself, Webb hired a secretary who took
appointments for viewings and later submitted the
work—which had been locked in the artist’s
‘‘office’’—inside a briefcase. After his graduation in
1972, Webb moved to London and attended the
Royal College of Art, following a long line of New
Zealand artists, and was influenced by the work of
Richard Long, performance and media artist Stuart
Brisley (1933–), and conceptual photographer Ham-
ish Fulton (1946–). The Robert Self Gallery, Lon-
don, hosted Webb’s Masters exhibition in 1975, as
part of a group show, as well as his first solo exhibi-
tion the following year. In 1978, Webb began to
exhibit his work internationally and further afield
in England. Webb’s photographs of performances
and installations soon evolved into works of art in
their own right and are characterized by sharp social
observations and a sense of satire and the absurd.
Webb’s photographic fabrications from the early
1970s often took the form of diptychs and were
heavily reliant on text. From the late 1970s, however,
Webb worked almost entirely from his East LondonWEBB, BOYD