Grant Heights U.S. Army Base in Tyoko during the
postwar occupation) won first prize in the student
section of the Fuji Photo Contest of 1952. Inspired
by the result, he enrolled at the Tokyo College of
Photography but soon abandoned his interest in
documentary ideals. While at the College, Hosoe
was a key contributor to a new expressive style
espoused by theDemokrato(Life) group that colla-
borated during the postwar era. Other members
included Ay-O, On Kawara, Masuo Ikeda, Tatsuo
Fukushima, and the spiritual leader Shuzo Takigu-
chi. Hosoe began to experiment and created photo-
graphs that were extremely dramatic and—a move
which has continued throughout his adult life. His
photographs around this time attempted to evoke
the dark, post-nuclear face of Japan as a way of
understanding changes and exploring personal
expression. The strong contrasts made possible by
black-and-white photography have also been a con-
sistent interest for the artist, who has only ventured
into color photography once.
Hosoe graduated in 1954 to become a freelance
photographer. His book 35mm Photography,a
technical guide, was published a year later, and
favorable sales allowed him to travel throughout
Japan. During 1956, Hosoe mounted his first solo
show at Konishiroku Gallery, entitledAn American
Girl in Tokyo, a fictional photo essay with text that
depicted a story of ill-fated love between an Amer-
ican girl and a Japanese man. While commercially
unsuccessful, the story recounted in the exhibition
was made into a radio drama, and the series was
published inPhoto Salonmagazine.
The most profound moment of Hosoe’s early
career, however, occurred in 1959, when he saw a
performance by the young dancer and founder of
Butohdance, Tatsumi Hijikata. Hijikata adapted
Yukio Mishima’s novelKinjiki(Forbidden Colors,
1952–1953), creating a scandal through his explora-
tion of the homoerotic themes of the book. At this
time, Hosoe helped to found the commercially suc-
cessful photo agency VIVO, an organization
formed from a group called Eyes of Ten, and he
also staged his second solo exhibition,Otoko to
onna(Man and woman), which shocked Japanese
audiences and earned him international attention.
The exhibition included very large, fragmented
nude portraits of Hijikata and the people in his
dance troupe, which Hosoe refers to as ‘‘photo-
graphic theatre.’’ That same year, on a beach in
Chiba, Hosoe and Hijikata made the experimental,
anti-nuclear war film Navel and Atomic Bomb.
Hosoe has also made several other films during his
career, such asJudo(1964) andModern Pentathlon
(1964) for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Both artists
returned to Chiba the following year to develop a
new series titled Embrace. By chance, however,
Hosoe also discovered Bill Brandt’sPerspectives of
Nudes(1961) and abandoned theEmbraceproject
for 10 years for fear of imitating the British master.
Also at this time, Hosoe won the ‘‘Most Promising
Photographer Award’’ of the Japan Photo Critics’
Association, and he began one of the most important
and successful working relationships of his career
with Mishima, who was impressed by Hosoe’s work
with Hijikata. One of their first collaborative projects
was a series of photographs of Mishima, which
Hosoe created for the writer’s book of critical essays,
The Attack of Beauty (1961–1963). Mishima was
among the first modern Japanese writers to attract
critical attention in the West; his novels often
addressed the tension between Western and Japanese
cultures. During this time, Hosoe took another series
of portraits of Mishima, which were published as the
bookBarakei(1963), translated into English asKilled
by Roses. Hosoe’s photographs reveal the tension
Mishima embodied between pre- and post-war
Japan as well as the body and the mind. The series
has been described by Hosoe as a ‘‘subjective docu-
mentary.’’ The artist’s directorial role in the project is
most evident in works such asOrdeal by Roses #32
(1962) andOrdeal by Roses #5(1962) which depict
Mishimawitharoseinhismouthandtiedupwitha
hose—symbolizing a masochistic balance of eroticism
and menace. During this time, Hosoe married Mis-
ako Imai.
While highly regarded for this literary work,
Mishima—Hosoe’s most celebrated collabora-
tor—was equally famous for his preoccupation
with the human body, its beauty and degeneration.
He longed for the patriotism of Imperial Japan and
was explicit about the cultivation of the perfect
physical form. His ultimate act of will was by com-
mittingseppuku(ritual suicide) in 1970.
Mishima’s death coincided with the launch of the
revised version ofBarakei, which Hosoe postponed
the release of until the following year. The English
translation had also been changed toOrdeal by Roses
at Mishima’s request. The photographs inBarakei
evidence the stylistic innovations of postwar Japanese
photographers and reveal a level of photographic
manipulation not seen until much later in other
parts of the world. Many writers, such as frequent
Hosoe commentator Mark Holburn, regard this pub-
lication as the artist’s masterpiece.
Other well-known series, such asKamaitachi(The
weasel’s sickle, 1965–1968),Simmon: A Private Land-
scape(1971–), andKimono(1963), are private studies
and metaphors for a changing Japanese society. The
later works are cinematic and intensely dramatized,HOSOE, EIKOH