was a celebrated Japanese photographer known for his work as a photojournalist and as a photographer of Buddhist temples and statuary.
Domon, who began his career in the 1930s contributing photo reportages to magazines that supported the increasingly militaristic Japanese state and its imperial policies, later criticized propaganda photography. His subsequent termination from the government agency he worked for spurred his career as a freelance photographer.
As photojournalists grappled with how to depict the new social reality of the post-WWII period, Domon forged the realistic photography movement (Riarizumu Shashin Undō). He embraced the idea of snapshot photography (sunappu), in which images could be captured with "absolute unstagedness".Ken Domon, "Riarizumu shashin to saron pikuchā" (Photographic Realism and the Salon Picture), Camera, October 1953, translated by Ivan Vartanian in Ivan Vartanian, Akihiro Hatanaka, and Yutaka Kanabayashi (ed.), Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers, New York, Aperture, 2005, p.22-27., p. 22. Domon documented the aftermath of the war, focusing on society and the lives of ordinary people. He received national acclaim for his portraits of children in exploitative labor conditions and Hiroshima bomb survivors (hibakusha).
Domon was forced to abandon sunappu photography after he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1958. His major project until the end of his career was photographing temples across Japan, a much-beloved subject that he had first begun to document in 1940. These images constituted the monumental series Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples (Koji Junrei), published in five volumes from 1963 to 1975.
Biography
Early life and career beginnings Domon was born to a working-class family in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture.Yoshio Watanabe, Ken Domon and Yasuhiro Ishimoto, The Beauty of Japan Photographed, Tokyo, The Japan Foundation, 1998. After his father lost his job, Domon had to abandon his studies and begin working in a furniture shop.Rossella Menegazzo, "The Realist Approach to a Changing Japan: From Art Photography to Social Documentation", Domon Ken. The Master of Japanese Realism, exh. cat., Rome, Museum of the Ara Pacis, Skira, 2016, p. 27-31. As a young man, Domon was passionate about painting, and exhibited an oil painting at the Yokohama annual art exhibition in 1926. However, fearing career instability, he decided not to pursue his interest professionally. Domon was eventually able to finish his studies in 1928 despite his family's financial difficulties.
In 1929, Domon began taking courses in law at Nihon University.Domon Ken. The Master of Japanese Realism, exh. cat., Rome, Museum of the Ara Pacis, Skira, 2016. He continued to paint in his free time and took shamisen lessons. In 1932, Domon was expelled from Nihon University for his involvement as a secretary at the Agricultural Workers' League (Nōmin kumiai), associated with the Japanese Communist Party.John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi (ed.), New Japanese Photography, exh. cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1974, p. 106. He was arrested by the police and only released upon promising to break all ties with communism.Yoshiaki Kai, "Sunappu: A Genre of Japanese Photography, 1930-1980", PhD dissertation, The City University of New York, 2012.
Domon's mother advised him to join the photo studio of Miyauchi Kōtarō as an apprentice in 1933. His entry into the photographic scene coincided with the flourishing of the medium in Japan in the late 1920s and early 1930s: photographic journals like Photo Times and Kōga allowed the Japanese public to view images produced by European avant-garde photographers. The exhibition Film und Foto, first held in 1929 in Stuttgart, subsequently traveling to Tokyo and Osaka in 1931, was equally instrumental in energizing Japanese photographers. Additionally, the newly available Leica, a small and affordable camera, allowed amateurs to begin taking photographs, which encouraged the development of new photography groups. Domon familiarized himself rapidly with the medium thanks to his voracious consumption of lectures from hundreds of photography books and magazines.
Early career, 1933-1939 From the outset of his career, Domon expressed an interest in photography with social and cultural themes. After publishing his first photo in the magazine Asahi Camera in 1935, he left his apprenticeship at Kōtarō's photo studio prematurely to work for Nippon Kōbō, an agency founded by photographer Yōnosuke Natori.Mari Shirayama, "The Three Rivals of Japanese Photojournalism", in Domon Ken. The Master of Japanese Realism, exh. cat., Rome, Museum of the Ara Pacis, Skira, 2016, p. 23-25. From 1934 until the end of the Asia Pacific War, the agency published NIPPON, a photo magazine targeted at foreigners to promote Japanese culture abroad.Gennifer Weisenfeld, "Touring Japan-as-Museum: NIPPON and Other Japanese Imperialist Travelogues", Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, vol. 8, no. 3, 2000, p. 747-793. Art historian Gennifer Weisenfeld notes that as such "it served as a quasi-governmental organ of national propaganda", receiving support from several state agencies.
Domon has stated that he lacked confidence and technical skill working on his first assignments, but he soon developed his craft and with it his self-assurance. Tension between the young photographer and his superior Natori soon set in. The work of the Nippon Kōbō photographers was considered a "company product" and thus was credited only to Natori, to Domon's chagrin.
His first reportage for NIPPON, published in 1936 and taken with his Leica, covered the Shichi-go-san festival at the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo. He then completed several shoots highlighting Japanese artisans and traditions. These early black and white photographs are often artfully composed, with dynamic lines and forms.
In 1938, with the support of Photo Times, he helped found the Youth Reportage Photography Research Association (), in which Hiroshi Hamaya also participated.
Photojournalism began to transform in the mid-1930s as Japan became increasingly nationalistic in the wake of the imperial expansion, eventually leading to the second Sino-Japanese war and the country's participation in World War II. Domon's pictures consequently became military-focused, depicting subjects such as Red Cross nurses and soldiers in training. His compositions rely on tightly organized groupings that convey collective order and strict discipline.
The tension between Natori and Domon continued to grow as Domon developed his ideas on photography and began publishing his photos in other magazines. Natori believed photography to be at the service of mass media, whereas Domon believed that the medium was a form of artistic expression. In 1939, Domon left Nippon Kōbō after being recruited to work for the Agency for International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, "KBS"), a national propaganda organization. Curator Mari Shirayama posits that Natori played a role in instigating his recruitment, understanding that he could no longer collaborate professionally with Domon. At the KBS, Domon notably contributed to a series of large photography panels that promoted Japan at the International Exhibition at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this time, Domon also played a central role in the Japanese Society of Reportage Photographers (Nippon Hōdō Shashin-ka Kyōkai).
War years, 1939-1945 The intensifying war effort brought about major changes for Japanese photographers. Following the end of free publication, many magazines were forced to cease their operations. Consequently, opportunities for commissions grew scarce. Now married to his wife Tami, whom he met in 1939, Domon struggled to financially support their growing family. He also lived in fear of being sent to the warfront as a photojournalist.
Withdrawing temporarily from the tense wartime climate, Domon visited the remote Buddhist temple Murō-ji in Nara Prefecture in 1939, accompanied by his friend and art historian Sumio Mizusawa. He returned forty times that same year and would return frequently over the course of the following decade, irrefutably drawn to "the apparent immutability of the majestic nature of this little temple". He began taking photos in 1940 of its architecture and wooden Buddha statues (kōninbutsu), using a wooden portrait camera made by Konishiroku (now Konica). He also gradually got to know the villagers and the war-related tragedies they lived through.Alice Y. Tseng, "Domon Ken's Murōji", Impressions, 2009, no. 30, p. 114-118. Murō-ji would be the catalyst for Domon's life-long work, Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples (Koji Junrei).
Domon's other significant wartime endeavor was a series on bunraku, a traditional form of Japanese puppet theater, which he began in 1941. Working with the puppeteers and the dark setting of the theater proved to be challenging. Nonetheless, Domon, with the help of assistants, worked tirelessly, using a heavy, primitive camera that was difficult to operate. The project was also threatened by a lack of sufficient materials due to wartime rationing. However, by 1943, they had produced 7,000 negatives. A selection of these images was published in the 1972 publication Bunraku.
Domon remained visible in the public sphere during the war, lecturing and writing about photography.In 1943, he published an article in the magazine Nihon Hyōron in which he announced his opposition to the use of magazines for propaganda, leading to the banning of the issue and his termination from KBS. Domon thus began forging his career as an independent freelance photographer.
Domon was to be drafted at the end of the war in 1945, but failed the required medical examination.
Post-war and Realism, 1945-1960 The period following the Japanese defeat was a time of great societal unrest. Like many other photographers, Domon struggled to support himself. He made ends meet by developing film and printing photographs for G.I.s.Edward Putzar, "The Reality of Domon Ken", Japan Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3, July 1994, p 208-322. As the publishing business gradually recovered, he was able to find jobs working for different photo magazines.
In 1950, Domon began work as a judge for the monthly photo contest organized by Camera magazine. He wrote short texts that accompanied the amateur photographs, and it was in these texts that the photographer began using "realism" (Riarizumu) to describe the photographs he admired.
By employing the term "realism", Domon built upon the first major debate in the Japanese art world during the post-war period. From 1946 to 1950, intellectuals and artists across disciplines tackled in heated discussions the question of what constituted "realism". Art historian Yuri Mitsuda importantly notes that "the realism debate was so divisive because it was not simply a matter of different formalistic preferences. The true topic being discussed was the attitude with which artists should confront reality and explore that reality through art."Yuri Mitsuda, "The 'Realism Debate' [Riarizumu Ronsō]", in Noriaki Kitazawa, Takemi Kuresawa and Yuri Mitsuda (ed.), History of Japanese Art After 1945. Institutions, Discourse, Practice, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2023, p. 63.
Domon associated realism with the photographic "snapshot" (sunappu). He first encountered this notion at a round-table discussion with the ethnographer Kunio Yanagita in 1943. Yanagita argued that staged images had no scholarly value and advocated for the "snapshot": an image where no direction is given by the photographer. While at first Domon did not agree, he soon adopted this point of view. He believed that such photographs were the means to an objective depiction of society.