__NOTOC__ was a Japanese photographer from Tottori, best known for his distinctive, dreamlike black-and-white images with staged figures, taken on the Tottori sand dunes. The term Ueda-chō (Ueda-tone) has been used to refer to his cool and mysterious atmospheric style.
Ueda began using posed figures and objects in his photographs in 1939, but would be forced to cease his production due to Japan's participation in World War II. His surreal Sand Dune series, of which the first images were published 1949, was overshadowed by the predominance of social realism, a major trend in Japanese post-war photography.
His oeuvre was reconsidered by critics in 1971 after the publication of the widely-appreciated photobook Warabe Goyomi (Children the Year Round), containing images of children which masterfully balanced social realism and the playfulness of Ueda's posed pictures. Since the 1970s, his work has won him international renown, and in 1995 the Ueda Shōji Museum of Photography was inaugurated.
Throughout the entirety of his life, Ueda remained deeply attached to his native San'in region, and in particular his hometown of Sakaiminato.
Biography
Early life and career beginnings Ueda Shōji was born to a merchant family in the port town of Sakaiminato, Tottori prefecture, on the western coast of the Sea of Japan. As a teenager, he showed interest in being a painter, but he started taking photographs instead after his father gave him his first camera when he was fifteen.Yumi Kim Takenaka, Realism and Ethnology in Ueda Shōji's Photography: Another Aspect of Ueda-chō, Art Research, vol. 1, p. 61-68.
He joined a local photography club, the Yonoga Photography Circle, in 1931. Here, he learned about "art photography", which promoted a pictorialist style, popular amongst amateurs of photography in Japan at that time.Kaneko Ryuichi, "The Man Who Photographed - Ueda Shoji", in Ueda Shoji & Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Play with Photography, exh. cat., Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 2013, p.190-192. He was particularly influenced by the pictorialist photographer Shiotani Teikō, his mentor. Ueda oversaw an important publication of Shiotani's work in 1975.
Ueda soon also became interested in shinko shashin or new photography, which looked to the European avant-gardes. Ueda discovered in the pages of the British magazine Modern Photography the work of André Kertész, Man Ray, Emmanuel Sougez and more.Gabriel Bauret, "Less is More", in Une ligne subtile. Shoji Ueda, exh. cat, Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne, 2006, p. 7-11. He notably retained the photographers' spirit of experimentation, which inspired him to create photograms, play with perspectives and toy with the framing of his images as he began to develop his own style.
During the year 1931, Ueda spent three months in Tokyo studying at the Oriental School of Photography, founded by the Oriental Photo Industry Company, the first business in Japan to produce photographic paper and material. His first professional photographic endeavor was the opening of a portrait studio in 1932, the Ueda Shashinjō. Ueda's business did well, but as time passed, he wanted to dedicate more time to his artistic photographic activity. Ueda's wife, Shiraishi Norie, whom he married in 1935, was supportive of him and took it upon herself to hire other photographers to take over his role at the studio.
From 1933 onwards, Ueda participated regularly in photography contests organized by magazines such as Asahi Camera. He also co-founded the Chūgoku Photographers Group, alongside Ishizu Ryōsuke, Masaoka Kunio, and Akira Nomura, which aimed to develop a modernist photography distinct from that of the major urban areas. They organized exhibitions in Nihonbashi, Tokyo so that they might gain recognition in Japan's artistic capital.
Ueda's 1939 photograph Shōjo shi tai (Four Girls, Four Positions) was a significant turning point for the artist, marking the beginning of his staged pictures. The panoramic image features four young girls on a sandbank, each of them gazing seriously in a different direction, seemingly indifferent to the others' presence. Their nearly identical forms give rhythm to the empty space. The photo does not contain any singular narrative, rather its mysteriousness allows for ample interpretation.
Around 1940, Japan's involvement in World War II interrupted Ueda's artistic activity. The intensifying war effort brought about the end of free publication and photographic materials grew scarce. Additionally, Sakaiminato, a strategically important port city, was transformed by the presence of the army. Ueda's photo studio was briefly tasked with taking military portraits, but Ueda did not take on any war reportage or propaganda assignments, contrary to many professional photographers of the time. Ueda was called to serve in the war effort twice in 1943, but was dismissed both times due to his being malnourished.Une ligne subtile. Shoji Ueda, exh. cat, Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne, 2006. Ueda thus never participated in the war, and he would make no reference to it in his photographic works for the rest of his career.Gabriel Bauret, "Jacques Henri Lartigue - Ueda Shoji. A Tentative Comparison", in Ueda Shoji & Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Play with Photography, exh. cat., Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 2013, p. 185-189.
Post-war career and Sand Dune series During the tumultuous period following Japan's defeat, Ueda jumped on new opportunities to create again. He joined Ginryūsha, a Tokyo-based association of Japanese photographers active before the war, and came to know Kuwabara Kineo, editor of the influential photography magazine Camera. Kuwabara proposed that Ueda shoot a series of images of fellow photographer Domon Ken in the Tottori sand dunes, which were published in Camera in September 1949.
Domon was a champion of the realism movement in Japanese post-war photography. He believed that the photographer's role was to attempt an objective depiction of society and to not divert their attention from social reality. The situation was undoubtedly grim in the years following Japan's surrender as citizens attempted to rebuild after a staggering defeat and adjusted to the American occupation.
Ueda, however, did not take an interest in realism, but rather returned to the staged photography that he had first undertaken in 1939. Art historian Yumi Kim Takenaka aptly describes his work at the time as follows: "Ueda's photographs seem to overflow with pleasure to be able to make his own photography freely again." There is indeed great joy and playfulness in his posed images, of which the most famous are those in which his wife and young children pose together in a lighthearted, humorous fashion. The barren landscape of the sand dunes lend a surreal quality to the figures, who seem to have appeared there out of thin air.
Ueda's photography, unconcerned by the pursuit of realism, provoked some negative responses from contemporary Japanese critics. It is notable in this context that avid realist Domon himself praised Ueda, calling his compositional style "a delight created entirely by the thoughts and emotions of the artist".IIzawa Kōtarō, "The Evolution of Postwar Photography", in The History of Japanese Photography, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2003, p. 213-14. Reflecting back later on this period, Ueda wrote: "The war had just ended. The wave of Social Realism was at its peak. The prestige of the absolute snapshot was overwhelming and critics heaped scorn on anything posed. In those stormy times, people like me saw no value in taking photographs; we turned on ourselves and sometimes lost hope."Suzuki Yoshiko, "Ueda Shoji and Jacques-Henri Lartique - Two Singular Photographers", in Ueda Shoji & Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Play with Photography, exh. cat., Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 2013, p. 194.Contrary to this statement, Ueda did not give up taking photography. In 1956, his works were included in the First International Subjective Photography Exhibition. Held in the same year that the newly founded Japan Subjective Photography League was established, the exhibition brought together prewar avant-garde figures such as Kansuke Yamamoto alongside emerging postwar photographers including Kiyoji Ōtsuji, Ikkō Narahara, and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. He increasingly his attention on his beloved San'in region, in particular the Izumo area. His photos appeared in numerous photo essay books throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Curator Kaneko Ryuichi posits that these endeavors, which remain overlooked even today, confirmed Ueda's self-identification as a "lifelong amateur photographer", which he would continue to say of himself even after gaining international recognition. Yumi Kim Takenaka has argued that Ueda maintained his signature mysterious and surreal aesthetic, sometimes called Ueda-chō (Ueda-tone), in the creation of these regional images.
1970s: Warabe Goyomi (Children the Year Around) and critical recognition The 1971 publication of a photographic series entitled Warabe Goyomi (Children the Year Around) brought about Ueda's critical reappraisal in Japan. The series, which he had begun in 1959, primarily included pictures of children from the San'in region during the course of the four seasons. Unlike Ueda's purified sand dune compositions, Warabe Goyomi takes the viewer out of dreamland and into the daily life of the San'in region. There is a sense of social realism: the children are sometimes dirty, disheveled, unsmiling, running amok in streets and alleyways. And yet Ueda's pictures still possess an undeniable artfulness, as well as the charming playfulness of his staged sand dune images. It is impossible to tell if the children were posed, or if Ueda captured them in their element.
Some stark photographs featuring powerful black and white contrasts lead Yumi Kim Takenaka to believe that, despite Ueda's deeming himself a purely "amateur photographer", "Ueda was actually very conscious regarding the trends of the different photographic movements", notably those associated with the radical photo magazine Provoke, which presented the work of Moriyama Daidō and Nakahira Takuma, amongst others.
Ueda opened a new photography studio in 1972, Ueda Camera, in Yonago, Tottori. This three-story building included a tea parlor on the second floor and a gallery on the third. The building became a hub for local amateur photographers who created their own club, called the U Circle.
In 1975, Ueda accepted a position as a photography professor at Kyushu Sangyo University, which he held until 1994.
Ueda flew to France in 1978 to participate in the annual international photography event Les Rencontres d'Arles. From then onwards, Ueda's works were shown regularly in Europe.
Late career Bereaved by the passing of his wife Norie in 1983, Ueda ceased taking photographs for a while. His son Mitsuru, an artistic director at the time, encouraged him to pick up the camera again. Ueda subsequently produced the series Dunes: Mode, a series of fashion photographs realized between 1983 and the mid 1990s.Shoji Ueda, 砂丘 La Mode, Tokyo, Asahi Shimbun Publications, 2016. These graceful images, instantly recognizable as Ueda's, often feature dapper men, carefully arranged by the photographer against the familiar backdrop of the Tottori sand dunes.