Kusakabe Kimbei

Kusakabe Kimbei (日下部 金兵衛) (1841–1934) was a Japanese photographer. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name.[3]:8

Kusakabe Kimbei
日下部金兵衛
BornNovember 24, 1841[1] or
November 27, 1841[2]
 Japan, Kōfu, Kai Province[1]
DiedApril 19, 1932[1] or
April 19, 1934[2]
Nationality Japan
Occupationphotographer
In this Japanese name, the surname is Kusakabe.

Career

Kusakabe Kimbei worked with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried as a photographic colourist and assistant. In 1881, Kimbei opened his own workshop in Yokohama, in the Benten-dōri quarter.[3] From 1889, the studio operated in the Honmachi quarter.[4]

By 1893, his was one of the leading Japanese studios supplying art to Western customers.[5] Many of the photographs in the studio's catalogue featured depictions of Japanese women, which were popular with tourists of the time.[5]:10 Kimbei preferred to portray female subjects in a traditional bijinga style, and hired geisha to pose for the photographs.[6] Many of his albums are mounted in accordion fashion.[7][8]

Around 1885, Kimbei acquired the negatives of Felice Beato and of Stillfried, as well as those of Uchida Kuichi.[4] Kusakabe also acquired some of Ueno Hikoma's negatives of Nagasaki.

Kimbei retired as a photographer in 1914.[9]

  • Country children
  • Kago Travelling Chair
  • Wringing the Tealeaves on the Furnace
  • Writing Letter (also known as Letter Writer)
  • Yumoto lake at Nikkō, Tochigi (日光市), Japan
  • Buddha statue at Hakone, Japan
  • Bell of Daibutsu in Kyoto
  • Japanese woman in jinrikisha
  • View of Mount Fuji. Hand-coloured albumen silver print, 1880.

References
  1. Nakamura, Hirotoshi (2006). 明治時代カラー写真の巨人 日下部金兵衛 (in Japanese). Tokyo, Japan: 国書刊行会. pp. 170–173. ISBN 4336047723.
  2. "日下部 金兵衛 クサカベ キンベエ", 20-seiki Nihon jinmei jiten(20世紀日本人名事典) = Major 20th-century people in Japan : a biographical dictionary20世紀日本人名事典 (in Japanese), Tokyo, Japan: Nichigai AsoshieÌ"tsu., 2004, ISBN 4816918531
  3. Tucker, Anne, ed. (2003). The history of Japanese photography. Yale University Press in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. ISBN 0300099258.
  4. Bennett, Terry. Early Japanese images (1st ed.). Charles E. Tuttle. p. 50. ISBN 1462911374.
  5. Wakita, Mio. Staging desires : Japanese femininity in Kusakabe Kimbei's nineteenth-century souvenir photography. 2013: Reimer. p. 14. ISBN 978-3-496-01467-6.CS1 maint: location (link)
  6. Kincaid, Chris (6 May 2018). "Felice Beato and Kimbei Kusakabe, Photographers of 1800s Japan". Japan Powered. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  7. "Exhibition: Visual Arts of Japan". Georgetown University Library. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  8. Hockley, Allen (2010). "Globetrotters' Japan: People. Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visualizing Cultures. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  9. Bennett, Terry (2012). Photography in Japan, 1853-1912. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 1462907083.
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