Daido Moriyama

Surely one of the most famous contemporary Japanese photographers along with Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama is the author of an abundant and original body of work.

Born in 1938 in Osaka Prefecture, he moved to Tokyo in 1961, assisting photographer Eikoh Hosoe. In this bustling capital, he discovered the Shinjuku district, with its narrow, diverse streets where employees and actors of Japanese counterculture met. This district became his favorite place to "wander." Wandering the streets on the lookout for forms and counter-forms, voraciously photographing a world that was evolving too quickly, this member of the highly influential post-war group Provoke often called himself a "stray dog," as in one of his most famous photographs, "Stray Dog." With dark, grainy, and highly contrasted shots, he often focuses on seemingly trivial details, revealing their full depth. While the photobook is a medium historically favored by Japanese photographers, Moriyama is particularly prolific: he has published more than 150 photographic books to date since his first work, "Japan, A Photo Theater," was released in 1968.

His photographs have been included in the collections of, among others, the Centre Pompidou in Paris (FR), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (USA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (USA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), San Francisco (USA), the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (USA).