Inventing a Photographic Past for Japan: From A Century of Japanese Photography (1968) to the Construction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Abstract

In 1968 two generations of Japanese photographers came together to research and curate the most comprehensive exhibition of the history of Japanese photography to date. Examining five hundred thousand photographs from public and private collections across the archipelago, they ultimately presented 1,640 images in a widely attended Tokyo exhibition. Moving beyond photographic nationalism, A Century of Japanese Photography was one of the only instances of public critique of the role of photographers who collaborated with the Japanese state during the Fifteen Year War (1931–45) and the exhibition’s popularity launched the movement to build the largest photography museum in Japan. Through analysis of the exhibition and establishment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, I illuminate how the process of writing the first major history of Japanese photography and building an institution to house its archive was a practice informed by the changing meanings of the role of photographers and museums within Japanese society.