Profile

Hiromi Tsuchida

Biography
1939 Born in Fukui Prefecture
1963 Graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Fukui University; joined Pola Cosmetics, worked in the research laboratory
1966 Graduated from Tokyo College of Photography
1971 Left Pola Cosmetics, became a freelance photographer
1971-96 Taught at Tokyo College of Photography
2000-2013 Professor at Osaka University of Arts
Currently resides in Tokyo

Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1939. After graduating from the Faculty of Engineering at Fukui University, he joined Pola Cosmetics. While working as a company employee, he studied at the Tokyo College of Photography and began his career as a photographer. After leaving the company in 1971, he chose the path of a photographer and published "Zokushin" (1976), which pursued the ethnicity of the Japanese people. This series, which he described as "wanting to confirm my own coordinates as a Japanese person" (from "Zokushin"), confirms his own identity as someone who grew up in Fukui and gradually took root in the city, and reaffirms the identity lost amidst advancing urbanization. It gained early recognition both in Japan and abroad, entering the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the 1970s. Later, in "Counting Sand" (1975-1990), which shares the same theme as "Zokushin" but takes the opposite perspective from the starting point to the destination, he focused on the "crowd" culture of the Japanese people, capturing the figures of the masses adapting to an overcrowded city. Major series published subsequently include "Party" (1978-90), which covered the hedonistic parties of the Japanese economic bubble, and "Industrial Archaeology" (1991-2004), which recorded the production sites of Japan's key industries. His main axis, "Considerations of Nippon," consistently employs completely different approaches depending on the subject, such as "Fake Scape" (1995-2000), which recorded the landscape of consumption along national highways as a counterpart to the landscape of production, "New Counting Sand" (1996-2002), which turned his camera on the crowds after the bubble burst in digital color, and "Zokushin Continued (Festivals)" (1989-2007), which captured Japanese festivals symbolically.
In addition, the series "Hiroshima," which won the Ina Nobuo Award, is a trilogy consisting of "Hiroshima 1945-1979" (1979), portraits of atomic bomb survivors 33 years later who contributed essays to "Children of the Atomic Bomb" (edited by Arata Osada, Iwanami Shoten); "Hiroshima Monument" (1979-), a fixed-point photography project of landscapes that retain traces of the bombing at the hypocenter; and "Hiroshima Collection" (1981-), which photographed personal belongings housed in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. His methodology of capturing Hiroshima not as a past event but from a present perspective, showing the "present" through photographs and the "past" through text, has been highly acclaimed.
As a long-term ongoing document similar to the "Hiroshima Trilogy," "Fukushima 2011-2017," a continuous record of radiation exposure conditions due to the nuclear accident following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, is a project with the same mindset as "Hiroshima Monument," which continues fixed-point photography of landscapes every ten years. To relativize Hiroshima, he began coverage in Berlin from 1999 to 2019 and in Jerusalem from 2005. This expansion of perspective overseas is underway with the concept of capturing the "modern era" by connecting three cities that symbolize the tragedies of the 20th century: Hiroshima, destroyed by nuclear weapons; Berlin, destroyed by being divided by the state under the Cold War structure; and Jerusalem, where religious and cultural conflicts have caused destruction up to the present 21st century.
Also, as a private record, he is challenging the grand theme of time and "Memento Mori" with "Aging," an ongoing project of taking one self-portrait of his face every day from 1986 to the present.

Awards
1971 Taiyo Award
1978 Ina Nobuo Award
1984 The Photographic Society of Japan Award
1986 JCJ Encouragement Award
2008 Domon Ken Award
2022 The Photographic Society of Japan Award, Lifetime Achievement Award

Photobooks (Japan)
1976 "Zokushin" (Otto's Books)
1979 "Hiroshima 1945-1979" (Asahi Sonorama)
1980 "Blue Flower" (Sebunsha)
1985 "Hiroshima" (Kosei Publishing)
1990 "Counting Sand" (Tosho Publishing)
"Party" (IPC)
1995 "Hiroshima Monument II" (Tosho Publishing)
"Hiroshima Collection" (Japan Broadcast Publishing)
2001 "THE BERLIN WALL" (Media Factory)
2004 "Revised Zokushin" (Tosho Publishing)
2005 "New Counting Sand" (Tosho Publishing)
"Hiroshima 2005" (Japan Broadcast Publishing)
2008 "Hiromi Tsuchida's Nippon" (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography)
2011 "BERLIN" (Heibonsha)
2018 "Fukushima" (Misuzu Shobo)
"Autistic Space" (Zen Foto Gallery)
2022 "Aging" (Fugensha)
2024 "The Future of Ouroboros" (Akio Nagasawa Publishing/Case Publishing)
2025 "Hiroshima Monument" (Fugensha)
"Hiroshima Collection" (NHK Publishing)
"Hiroshima Collection - Summer, 1945." (Nakanoshima Kosetsu Museum of Art)

Major Exhibitions (Japan) (Entries marked "Participation" are group exhibitions)
1971 "Autistic Space" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1978 "Counting Sand" Solo Exhibition, Minolta Photo Space (Tokyo)
"Hiroshima 1945-1979" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1980 "Blue Flower" Solo Exhibition, Minolta Photo Space (Tokyo)
1982 "Hiroshima Collection" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1985 "Counting Sand" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1990 "Party" Solo Exhibition, Minolta Photo Space (Tokyo)
Participated in "Tokyo: Urban Gaze" exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Tokyo)
1993 "Hiroshima Monument II" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1994 "Tent" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1995 Participated in "Nuclear: Half-Life" exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Tokyo)
1997 "Aging" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
1999 "Counting Hiromi Tsuchida - 1" Solo Exhibition, Guardian Garden (Tokyo)
"Berlin 1999" Solo Exhibition, Creation Gallery G8 (Tokyo)
2001 Participated in "Discovering Japan: Taro Okamoto and Postwar Photography" exhibition, Taro Okamoto Museum of Art (Kawasaki, Kanagawa)
"A Study on Copies in Ando Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido" Solo Exhibition, Light Works (Yokohama, Kanagawa)
"Hiromi Tsuchida Retrospective" Solo Exhibition, Osaka University of Arts Gallery (Osaka)
2002 "FAKE-ASPECT" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
"Autistic Space" Solo Exhibition, Past Rays (Yokohama, Kanagawa)
2004 "Counting Sand" Solo Exhibition, JCII Photo Salon (Tokyo)
2005 "Zokushin" Solo Exhibition, Gallery Tosho (Tokyo)
"New Counting Sand" Solo Exhibition, PR Gallery Past Rays (Tokyo?)
2006 "Hiroshima 2005" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
2007 "Hiromi Tsuchida's Nippon" Solo Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Tokyo)
2008 "Hiromi Tsuchida's Nippon" Solo Exhibition, Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art (Fukui)
"Domon Ken Award Commemorative Exhibition" (Tokyo, Osaka, Sakata/Yamagata)
2010 "Zokushin" Solo Exhibition, JCII Photo Salon (Tokyo)
2012 "BERLIN" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo)
2013 "Zokushin" Solo Exhibition, Gallery Tosho (Tokyo)
"Fukushima in Hiroshima" Gallery G, NSA Gallery, etc. (Hiroshima)
2014 "Fukushima" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo, Osaka)
Participated in "Yokohama Triennale 2014" (Yokohama, Kanagawa)
2016 "Fukushima" Solo Exhibition, Fukushima Denryokukan Gallery (Fukushima, Fukushima)
2018 "Fukushima" Solo Exhibition, Nikon Salon (Tokyo, Osaka)
2020 "Aging" Solo Exhibition, Fugensha Gallery (Tokyo)
2021 "The Future of Ouroboros" Solo Exhibition, Canon Gallery S (Tokyo)
2022 "Hiroshima Collection" JCII Photo Salon (Tokyo)
2024 "Wall to Wall - Jerusalem" Gallery Forest, Tokyo College of Photography (Yokohama)
2025 "Zokushin" Fujifilm Square Photo History Museum (Tokyo)
Participated in KYOTOGRAPHIE Kyoto International Photography Festival (Kyoto)
"Hiroshima Collection" Solo Exhibition (Nakanoshima Kosetsu Museum of Art) (Osaka)
"Hiroshima Monument" Solo Exhibition (LADS Gallery) (Osaka)
"Daily Life and Its Destruction - Ikuo Hirayama & Hiromi Tsuchida" (Ikuo Hirayama Museum of Art) (Hiroshima)
"Hiroshima Monument" Solo Exhibition (Fugensha) (Tokyo)
Participated in "Gaze at the Invisible" exhibition (MOMENT) (Nara)
"Hiroshima Trilogy" Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ) (Tokyo)

Major Exhibitions (Overseas) (Entries marked otherwise than "Solo Exhibition" are group exhibitions)
1974 "New Japanese Photography" exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York, USA) (traveled to 8 major cities in the U.S. and Canada)
1977 Participated in "Contemporary Japanese Photographers" exhibition, Graz City Museum (Graz, Austria)
1979 Participated in "Self-Portrait Japan" exhibition, ICP Gallery (New York, USA)
1983 Participated in "Symposium & Photography by Photographers" exhibition (Graz, Austria)
1985 "Hiroshima" Solo Exhibition, toured various locations in the U.S. by the Japan UNESCO Association (USA)
1986 Participated in "Japanese Avant-Garde Art" exhibition, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France)
1989 Participated in "Photography Now" exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum (UK)
"Hiroshima" Solo Exhibition, Gallery DB-S (Antwerp, Belgium)
Participated in "EUROPALIA 89' JAPAN" exhibition, Antwerp Provincial Museum of Photography (Antwerp, Belgium)
1991 "Zokushin" Solo Exhibition, National Library of France Gallery (Paris, France)
1993 "Hiroshima" Solo Exhibition, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa, Canada)
1994 Foto Fest '94 (Houston, USA)
1995 Participated in "Nuclear Landscapes" exhibition, Portland Art Museum (Oregon, USA)
1996 Participated in "JAPAN TODAY" exhibition, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark)
1997 "People and Landscape" Hiromi Tsuchida: Toshio Shibata Two-Person Exhibition, Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg, USA)
2000 Participated in "History and Memory (Geschichte und Erinnerung)" exhibition, Historisches Museum (Frankfurt, Germany)
2003 Participated in "The History of Japanese Photography" exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, USA)
Participated in "JAPON 1945-1975" exhibition, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, France)
2005 Participated in "ENTERNIDAD fugitive" exhibition (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA)
2006 Hiroshi Hamaya & Hiromi Tsuchida Two-Person Exhibition, participated in Paris Photo Month (Paris, France)
2008 Participated in "Nuclear Dilemma exhibition," Red Cross Museum (Paris, France), subsequently toured worldwide
IN-SECURITY The Nuclear Dilemma, Red Crescent Museum, Geneve, Switzerland (5-year international tour)
2009 Participated in "PHOTO QUAI" exhibition, Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, France) PHOTOQUAI 2009 - la biennale des images du monde, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France
2011 "Apocalypses, la disparition des villes de Dresde à Détroit (1944-2010)" Pavillon Populaire (Montpellier, France)
2014 Participated in "Conflict Time Photography" exhibition, TATE Modern (London, UK) Conflict-Time-Photography, Tate Modern (London, UK) (traveled to Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany)
Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany), Dresden State Art Collections (Dresden, Germany)
"Hiroshima Collection" (Solo Exhibition) SIDE GALLERY (Newcastle, UK)
2017 MÉMOIRE ET LUMIÈRE PHOTOGRAPHIE JAPONAISE, 1950-2000, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, France)
2018 Participated in "Paris Photo" (Hiroshima Collection) IBASHO Gallery, Grand Palais (Paris, France) Paris Photo, IBASHO Gallery, Grand Palais, Paris, France
2022-2023 Participated in the 58th Carnegie International
2024 Participated in "L'Âge atomique / Atomic Age" exhibition, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (Paris, France)

Public Collections
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Tokyo)
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Tokyo)
Yokohama Museum of Art (Kanagawa)
Kawasaki City Museum (Kanagawa)
Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art (Fukui)
Domon Ken Museum of Photography (Yamagata)
Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum (Okinawa)
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (Hiroshima)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (USA)
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (California, USA)
George Eastman Museum (New York, USA)
Princeton University Art Museum (New Jersey, USA)
Visual Studies Workshop (New York, USA)
National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, Canada)
Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, France)
Tate Modern (London, UK)
Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK)
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (Hamburg, Germany)
Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C., USA)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, USA)
Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, USA)

2025.11