SUZUKI, Kiyoshi. Soul and Soul / Nagare no uta [A Flowing Song]. [Tokyo]: Otake Bijutsu [privately printed], 1972.

SUZUKI, Kiyoshi.
Soul and Soul / Nagare no uta [A Flowing Song].
[Tokyo]: Otake Bijutsu [privately printed], 1972.

Oblong 8vo (203 × 238 mm), pp.[92]. Black-and-white photographs. Plain endpapers. Black cloth-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt; light endemic toning to pastedowns from flaps, small area of abrasion at fore-edge, top corner of text-block lightly tapped. Black-and-white photo-illustrated dust-jacket, white, text in black; top edge lightly rubbed, two tiny nicks to bottom edge. A near-fine copy.

First edition. Kiyoshi Suzuki was born in Iwaki City, a coal-mining town, in 1943. After graduating from the Tokyo College of Photography in 1969 he pursued a career as a photographer, however, shortly after it was required that he take over the family sign painting business. He continued to photograph, and later took up a teaching role at the Tokyo College of Photography. Between 1972 and 1998 he published eight books, seven of which, including this, his first, were self-published. Soul and Soul is Suzuki's homage to his hometown, comprising of photographs of mineworkers in Iwaki City and other mining towns, children at play, travelling performers, after-work amusements, and images taken from film frames. The book is divided in to four chapters: 'the coal-mine; so far away', 'mid-summer', 'traveling actors', and 'after hours'.

The 1970s were a particularly productive period for self-published books in Japan, other self-published books from this time include: Nobuyoshi Araki’s Sentimental Journey (1971); Daido Moriyama’s Another Country: New York (1974); Yutaka Takanashi’s Towards the City (1974); Hitoshi Tsukiji’s Perpendicularly, (Territory) (1975); Shigeo Gocho’s Self and Others (1977); and Miyako Ishiuchi’s Apartment (1978).

Kaneko, R. and Vartanian, I., Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ‘70s pp.188-191.

 

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