Chirū Yamanaka

(7 May 1905 – 11 September 1977), born Toshiyuki Yamanaka and also known as Tiroux Yamanaka, was a Japanese poet, critic, translator, and editor who played a central role in introducing Surrealism to Japan. Working in Nagoya during the interwar years, he founded the avant-garde poetry magazine CINÉ in 1929 and established direct contacts with European Surrealists including Paul Éluard and André Breton. In 1937, Yamanaka and Shūzō Takiguchi organized the touring Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhinten (Exhibition of Overseas Surrealist Works), with assistance from European Surrealists including Éluard, Georges Hugnet, and Roland Penrose. Breton and Éluard's 1938 Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme listed Yamanaka as a Surrealist poet and writer and identified him as a promoter of the movement in Japan.

Yamanaka was also active in Nagoya's avant-garde circles in the late 1930s. He helped establish the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club and the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde, where he introduced fellow members to recent developments in Surrealism abroad. He was closely involved with Yoru no Funsui (, The Night's Fountain), a Surrealist poetry magazine founded by the poet and photographer Kansuke Yamamoto in Nagoya in 1938, and later published a poetry collection of his own under the same title in 1963. He continued to publish poetry and criticism after the Second World War, as well as books on the history of Surrealism and Dada.

Life and work

Early work and CINÉ

Yamanaka began publishing poetry while still a student in Nagoya and contributed to the coterie magazine in the early 1920s. In 1929 he founded CINÉ, initially a magazine of poetry and film that soon turned increasingly toward Surrealism.

CINÉ published translations of European Surrealist poetry and writing alongside work by Japanese contributors. Yamanaka and Tokusaburō Nishiwaki translated passages from Breton and Philippe Soupault's The Magnetic Fields, and Yamanaka later published his own translations of poems by Éluard.

Contacts with European Surrealists

Yamanaka began corresponding with Éluard in 1933 and subsequently exchanged letters and publications with Breton, Hugnet, Hans Bellmer, and other European Surrealists. Much of this correspondence survives at Keio University; Munro describes Yamanaka's prewar correspondence as the best-preserved body of its kind among Japanese Surrealists.

In 1936 Yamanaka published L'Échange surréaliste, copies of which circulated among European Surrealists including Éluard and Penrose. The following year he worked with Takiguchi on Album Surréaliste, a special issue of the art magazine Mizue, and on the Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhinten.

The exhibition toured Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagoya and presented hundreds of works and reproductions by European Surrealists. Surrealism Beyond Borders credits Yamanaka and Takiguchi with organizing the exhibition with help from Éluard, Hugnet, Penrose, and other European contacts.

Yamanaka's activities were also known in Paris. Breton and Éluard's Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme (1938) included him as a Surrealist poet and writer and as a promoter of Surrealism in Japan.

Nagoya avant-garde circles

In November 1937, Yamanaka and the painter Yoshio Shimozato helped found the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club, which brought together poets, painters, and photographers. In 1939, its photography section became independent as the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde. Yamanaka helped form the group with Minoru Sakata, Shimozato, and Tsugio Tajima. Poet-photographer Kansuke Yamamoto was also a member.

The Nagoya City Art Museum describes Yamanaka as a theoretical leader of the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde. At the group's meetings, he discussed recent developments in Surrealism abroad and showed members publications such as Minotaure and Cahiers d'Art.

His work in Nagoya was part of his broader efforts to introduce Surrealism to Japan. The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum describes Yamanaka as having played a central role in this process. Yoru no Funsui

In a study of Yamanaka's life and poetry, Yoshiteru Kurosawa suggests that Yamanaka was planning a second poetry collection titled Yoru no Funsui () in the latter half of the 1930s. The book was not published at the time; Kurosawa attributes this to the amount of time Yamanaka was devoting to presenting Surrealism through publications and exhibitions.

In November 1938, the poet and photographer Kansuke Yamamoto founded a Surrealist poetry magazine in Nagoya under the same title, Yoru no Funsui, and Kurosawa describes Yamanaka as fully involved in the magazine. A chronology published by the Nagoya City Art Museum likewise records Yamanaka and Yamamoto together in connection with the magazine's founding. Kurosawa notes that no surviving document establishes how the magazine acquired its title.

During this period, wartime censorship in Japan was becoming increasingly strict. The magazine drew the attention of the Special Higher Police, and publication was not allowed to continue. The fourth issue, published in October 1939, was the last.

In 1963 Yamanaka published his own poetry collection under the same title, Yoru no Funsui, through Presse Bibliomane. The volume contains eighteen four-line poems.

Postwar work

Yamanaka continued to publish poetry and criticism after the Second World War. In 1948 he joined Katsue Kitasono and others in publishing CENDRE, and in 1949 he published Shururearisumu shikō josetsu ().

His postwar poetry collections included Tasogare no hito (, 1956), Yoru no Funsui (1963), and Suna no gakki (, 1967). In his later years he returned to the documentary history of Surrealism, publishing Surréalisme shiryō to kaisō () in 1971 and Dada ronkō () in 1975.

Yamanaka died on 11 September 1977, aged 72.

Selected works

Jouer au feu (, 1935), poetry collection L'Échange surréaliste (1936), editor Shururearisumu shikō josetsu (, 1949) Tasogare no hito (, 1956), poetry collection Yoru no Funsui (, 1963), poetry collection Suna no gakki (, 1967), poetry collection Surréalisme shiryō to kaisō (, 1971) Dada ronkō (, 1975)

Chirū Yamanaka

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