Hiroshi Hamaya was born in 1915 in Tokyo (he passed in 1999). He captured the customs of urban and old town neighborhoods in the 1930s. In 1933, he began working at Oriental Photo Industry, publisher of the camera magazine Photo Times, which had been introducing progressive Western European art trends to Japanese readers (he left in 1937). In 1938, Hamaya helped Shuzo Takiguchi establish the “Avant-Garde Photography Association.” In 1939, he visited Takada City, Niigata Prefecture for a story for the magazine Graphic and met the folklorist Shinji Ichikawa and Keizo Shibusawa. Influenced by these encounters as well as Tetsuro Watsuji’s Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study, Hamaya shifted his focus from the spectacle of the city to cultural climates that fundamentally effect the formation of persons. As Japan prepared for war, Hamaya joined Ihei Kimura and Hiroshi Hara at Tohosha in 1941, but quit in 1943. The same year, he shot Japanese cultural figures as a part-time employee of Pacific News Photo Service. In 1960, he became a contributing photographer at Magnum.
His solo exhibitions include “The Photographer Hiroshi Hamaya,” Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa (1989); “Century of Photography: Hiroshi Hamaya, 1931-1990,” Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (1997). His photo books include Snow Country (Mainichi Shinbunsha 1956); Japan’s Back Coast (Shinchosha, 1957); A Chronicle of Grief and Anger (Kawade Shobo Shinsya, 1960).
He is the recipient of the 2nd Mainichi Photograhy Award (for “Japan’s Back Coast”, 1956); Japan Artist’s Award (for Aspects of Nature, Aspects of Life: A Collection of Photographs by Hiroshi Hamaya, 1981); the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1987).
