Nobuyoshi Araki

Surely one of the most famous contemporary Japanese photographers along with Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki is a legendary photographer.

Born in Tokyo in 1940, Araki was introduced to photography at a very early age thanks to the amateur practice of his father, a craftsman. He continued his studies with a specialization in photography and film direction, but only became a professional in the field when he joined the advertising agency Dentsu . Araki is famous today, in particular for his roped female nudes, according to the art of kinbaku (Japanese bondage). But his work is not limited to these sultry photographs, as the photographer almost never lets go of his camera on a daily basis. A prolific artist, the photographer creates images filled with eroticism and desire, which transcribe impulses of life and death with an always assumed sentimentality.

Araki received the prestigious Higashikawa Prize in 1985 and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 2004. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. All of these images have been published in over 500 photography books, making Nobuyoshi Araki one of the most published photographers in the world.