Nakaji Yasui - Nakaji Yasui

Photographer. Born in Osaka City. A representative artist in the rise of modernism in Japanese photographic expression in the 1920s and 1930s. He began taking photographs at around the age of 14. After graduating from Osaka Meisei Commercial School in 1921 (Taisho 10), he worked at his family business, Yasui Paper Shop. In 1922, he exhibited his photograph "Secessionist Architecture and Its Surroundings" at the 11th exhibition of the Naniwa Photography Club, which was the leading group in the Kansai amateur photography world at the time, and joined the club in the same year. He quickly distinguished himself as an up-and-coming photographer, winning the Grand Prize for his work "Monkey Show" at the 14th Naniwa Photography Club exhibition in 1925. In his early works, he often used pictorial printing techniques such as the brom-oil method (a technique in which gelatin silver bromide photographic prints are bleached through chemical processing and the hardened gelatin film on the photographic paper is colored with oil-based pigments), and while he pursued an expression based on the soft-focus depiction that was popular among Japanese art photographers in the Taisho period, he also enthusiastically attempted to capture the dynamic feeling of modern cities through snapshots. In 1928 (Showa 3), he formed the Ginreisha company with several photographers active in the Kansai area, including Umesaka Oori (1900-65), and held three group exhibitions by 1930. He also joined the Tanpei Photography Club, which was founded in 1930 by photographer Ueda Bizan (1888-1984), with whom he would remain friends until his later years, a little later than the club's founding.

At the "Germany International Traveling Photography Exhibition" held in Tokyo and Osaka in 1931 (a traveling version of the "Film and Photography" exhibition held in Stuttgart, Germany in 1929), Yasui was deeply impressed by the experimental photographs of the same era by Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, and many other Western photographers. This prompted Yasui to actively experiment with techniques such as photomontage, close-ups, and abstract composition, and he developed a style that led the new trend of modernism in Japan at the time, known as "new photography." Yasui's works from the 1930s coexisted with an interest in social reality, as seen in "Flag" (1931), which was a photograph of a May Day demonstration, and a reportage of a Korean settlement (around 1939), and an approach of a sharp gaze on material things, as seen in the "Magnetics" series (around 1939), which was photographed at the request of Sumitomo Metals.

In 1941, together with Shiihara Osamu (1905-1974) and other members of the Tanpei Photography Club, he interviewed Jewish refugees from Poland in Kobe and photographed them in the "Ryubō Jew" series. He died the following year from kidney failure at the age of 38.

[Kinichi Ohirakata]

"Yasui Nakaji - The genius photographer who ran through modernism" (1994, Shinchosha) "Japanese Photographers 9: Yasui Nakaji" (1999, Iwanami Shoten) " Yasui Nakaji Posthumous Works" (1941), edited and published by Ueda Bizan

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

写真家。大阪市生まれ。1920～30年代日本の写真表現におけるモダニズム興隆期の代表的作家。14歳ごろから写真を撮りはじめる。1921年（大正10）、大阪明星商業学校を卒業後、家業である安井洋紙店に勤務。22年、当時の関西アマチュア写壇における主導的な団体だった浪華(なにわ)写真倶楽部の第11回展に写真作品「分離派の建築と其(その)周辺」を出品し、同年同倶楽部へ入会。25年の第14回浪華写真倶楽部展に出品した「猿廻しの図」で優選賞を受けるなど、新進の写真家として早くから頭角をあらわした。初期の作品ではブロムオイル法（ゼラチン・シルバー・ブロマイドの写真印画を化学的処理で漂白し、印画紙上の硬化したゼラチン膜を油性顔料で着色する技法）などの絵画主義的な印画技法をしばしば用い、大正期日本の芸術写真家たちの間で流行していたソフト・フォーカスの描写を基調とする表現を追求するとともに、スナップショットで近代都市に息づく動感をとらえる新しい試みにも意欲的に取り組んだ。28年（昭和3）には、梅阪鶯里(おうり)（1900―65）ら関西圏で活動する数名の写真家と銀鈴社を結成、30年まで3回にわたってグループ展を催した。また、晩年まで親交を結ぶことになる写真家上田備山(びざん)（1888―1984）らが30年に創設した丹平(たんぺい)写真倶楽部に、結成より少し遅れて参加した。

　31年に朝日新聞社の主催により東京と大阪で公開された「独逸(ドイツ)国際移動写真展」（29年にドイツのシュトゥットガルトで開催された「映画と写真」展の一部を巡回）で、マン・レイ、モホリ・ナギその他多数の欧米の作者による同時代の実験的な写真作品に接し、大きな衝撃を受ける。それを契機として、安井はフォトモンタージュ、クローズ・アップ、抽象的構成などの手法を積極的に試みるようになり、当時の日本で「新興写真」と呼ばれたモダニズムの新しい流れを牽引する作風を繰り広げていった。安井の1930年代の作品には、メーデーのデモを撮った「旗」（1931）や朝鮮人集落を取材したルポルタージュ（1939ころ）に見られる社会的現実への関心と、住友金属の依頼で撮影した「磁気」シリーズ（1939ころ）などに示された物質への鋭い凝視のアプローチとが併存していた。

　41年椎原治（1905―74）ら丹平写真倶楽部のメンバーと共に、ポーランドからの亡命ユダヤ人たちを神戸で取材し、「流氓(りゅうぼう)ユダヤ」シリーズを撮影。翌年、腎不全のため38歳で没した。

［大日方欣一］

『『安井仲治――モダニズムを駆けぬけた天才写真家』（1994・新潮社）』▽『『日本の写真家9　安井仲治』（1999・岩波書店）』▽『上田備山編・刊『安井仲治遺作集』（1941）』

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