About This Image

Reproduced in "Art Photography in Japan 1920-1940", Charles Schwartz Ltd. and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC, 2003, plate 10.

During the 1920s there were hundreds of photography clubs and photographic art-study groups throughout Japan. The Tokyo Archive is a large collection of photographs from the 1920s and '30s that came primarily out of these clubs. Most of the photographs are anonymous, and they are all unique, vintage prints. Photographic prints from this period in Japan are quite rare, as much of this work was destroyed during WWII.