Seiji Kurata

Publications by Japanese photographer Seiji Kurata (1945–2020), sourced and dispatched from Lokator100 in Germany.

  • Flash photography of Tokyo's underground subcultures, 1970s–1980s
  • Winner of the Kimura Ihei Award (1980) and the Kodansha Publishing Culture Award (1999)
  • Prints held at ICP New York, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
  • Titles published by Byakuya Shobō, Shinchōsha, Ōta Shuppan, and others — most now out of print
  • Includes Eros Lost, currently available at Lokator100

Seiji Kurata (1945–2020) was a Tokyo-born photographer who trained under Daidō Moriyama and graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1968. His practice developed across photography, printmaking, and film before converging on the street as his primary subject.

Working with flash and medium format through the 1970s and 1980s, Kurata documented the edges of Tokyo nightlife — bōsōzoku, gangsters, strippers, transvestites, and the underground subcultures that occupied the city's margins. The work is precise and unflinching, shot with a formal clarity that distinguishes it from documentary impulse. His debut, Flash Up (1980), won the fifth Kimura Ihei Award. Later publications extended his range across Japan and into Asia. Eros Lost - Seiji Kurata is among the titles currently available at Lokator100.

Kurata's photobooks were published in limited runs by Japanese houses including Byakuya Shobō, Shinchōsha, and Ōta Shuppan. Most are now out of print and difficult to source. His prints are held in the permanent collections of the ICP in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Browse the full range of photography publications in the Photobooks collection at Lokator100.