Masahisa Fukase 1961–1991: Eight Series in One Volume
Published by Akaaka Art Publishing to accompany the large-scale 2023 exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, this volume presents Masahisa Fukase's work across three decades — from the early 1960s through the early 1990s — as a coherent body of work rather than a sequence of isolated projects.
Eight series, one volume
Fukase is frequently encountered through a single title. This retrospective corrects that reduction. The book brings together eight major series: Yōko, Family, Sasuke, Walking Eye, Private Scenes, Bukubuku, Yūgi / Homo Ludence, and Karasu / Ravens. Placing Ravens - Masahisa Fukase back into the larger structure from which it emerged, the retrospective framing is substantially more informative than any single-series reprint. For readers of Japanese photography and retrospective catalogues, that wider scope makes the book a more useful reference point.
Among the most significant inclusions is Yōko, which had not appeared in photobook form since its 1978 publication. Its presence reinforces the autobiographical logic running through Fukase's practice: wife, family, daily life, and self-projection form the persistent subject matter, pushed toward something formally inventive and psychologically charged.
Fukase beyond Ravens
Fukase's practice was private, autobiographical, and often obsessive in its focus on the people and spaces immediately around him. The retrospective format — spanning thirty years and eight distinct bodies of work — makes visible a continuity that individual series publications could not. Text contributions by Tomo Kosuga provide critical framing for the exhibition context and the work's longer arc. For readers approaching Fukase through Photobooks and postwar Japanese photography more broadly, this volume offers a more complete picture than any single title alone.
At a glance
- Published for the 2023 Tokyo Photographic Art Museum retrospective exhibition
- Covers eight major series: Yōko, Family, Sasuke, Walking Eye, Private Scenes, Bukubuku, Yūgi / Homo Ludence, and Karasu / Ravens
- First photobook appearance of Yōko since its 1978 publication
- 216 pages, cloth hardcover, 220 × 148 mm
- Texts in English and Japanese; critical text by Tomo Kosuga
- Published by Akaaka Art Publishing, 2023
About Masahisa Fukase
Masahisa Fukase (1934–2012) is regarded as one of the most radical and experimental photographers of postwar Japan. He became internationally known above all for Karasu / Ravens, but his wider body of work extends across family, marriage, self-representation, travel, animals, and psychologically charged views of private life.
Much of Fukase's oeuvre remained difficult to access for years. This retrospective volume repositions him not simply as the maker of Ravens, but as a photographer whose projects around Yōko, family, walking, private scenes, and late self-imaging form a larger and more complex body of work — one that the 1961–1991 timeframe makes newly legible.
