photobook
- Museum number
- 2007,3007.180
- Title
- Object: Hiroshima - Nagasaki Document
- Description
-
Photobook. First edition. Together with a 54pp. volume of English text and a letterpress in Japanese.
- Production date
- 1961
- Dimensions
-
Height: 28.30 centimetres
-
Width: 28 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- “The record of man's striving and suffering cannot but evoke human feeling. Emotion can destroy; but it can also illuminate thought and nourish useful action. The purpose of this book is to arouse in its reader such emotions as will guide and encourage them in their efforts for peaceful progress toward those goals to which we all aspire.” Weighty, shadowy photos with plenty of black to stir the spirit. There is an unexpected amount of provocative Christian imagery, rosaries, crucifixes, graves, and the ruins of Murakami cathedral, but one is left feeling uncertain if this is a direct attack or simply a record. And if the images are not enough, the accompanying booklet makes for uncomfortable reading. The argument that the bombs shortened the war and saved American lives is clearly simplistic. Characteristically, any mention of the Japanese aggression is absent. Introduction by Yukawa Hideki, paintings by Iri Maruki & Toshiko Maruki, explanatory notes by Sakuma Kiyoshi, Kusano Nubuo, and Hata Toshio. (Titus Boeder, 4/07)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2008 Jun-Aug, BM G3, 'Reflecting on Modern Japan'
2015 July-October, London, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
- Acquisition date
- 2007
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2007,3007.180
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: PB.177 (Photobook number)