Ukai Gyokusen
Ukai Gyokusen (鵜飼 玉川, 1807–1887)[1] was a pioneering Japanese photographer. Although he is much less well known than his contemporaries Shimooka Renjō and Ueno Hikoma, he is important for being the first Japanese professional photographer, having established a photographic studio in Edo (now Tokyo) in 1860 or 1861.[2]
Ukai was born in what is now
In 1859, with the intention of learning photographic technique, Ukai travelled to
In 1879 Ukai worked for the Treasury Printing Office, travelling through western Japan for five months with the Office's director, inspecting and photographing antiquities. The findings of this research were published between 1880 and 1881 as Kokka Yohō (国華余芳),[5] featuring lithographs derived from photographs by Ukai.[6]
In 1883 Ukai buried several hundred of his glass negatives at Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo. A monument placed at the site included carved biographical details that were supplemented four years later when Ukai died and was himself interred at the spot. The glass negatives were unearthed in 1956 and reported in the periodical Sun Shashin Shimbun.[7]
Of the many unattributed Japanese ambrotypes to have survived from the 1860s, some were probably produced by Ukai. One photograph that has been positively identified as his work is an 1863 portrait of Miura Shushin.[8]
Notes
- ^ Bennett, 60.
- ^ Shimooka and Ueno both opened their studios in 1862. Bennett, 60.
- ^ a b Bennett, 61.
- ^ Bennett provides a translation of the title: First Compilation of Great Edo Contemporaries. Bennett, 61.
- ^ Bennett's translation: Remaining National Glory. Bennett, 62.
- ^ Bennett, 61–62.
- ^ Bennett, 60, 61.
- ^ Bennett, 62.
References
- Bennett, Terry. Photography in Japan: 1853–1912 Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 2006. ISBN 0-8048-3633-7(hard)
- Nihon no shashinka (日本の写真家) / Biographic Dictionary of Japanese Photography. Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2005. ISBN 4-8169-1948-1. (in Japanese) Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese.
- Nihon shashinka jiten (日本写真家事典) / 328 Outstanding Japanese Photographers. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2000. ISBN 4-473-01750-8. (in Japanese) Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese.