Shoji Ueda

Born in 1913 in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, Japan, whose sand dunes would later serve as the backdrop for his most famous images, Shoji Ueda picked up his first camera at the age of 15. While attending photography schools and clubs, he discovered the pictorialist Teiko Shiotani, who had a strong influence on him. This photographic movement, radically opposed to realism, already foreshadowed the style that Ueda would maintain and defend for the rest of his life.

Indeed, after setting up his own studio in his hometown in 1932, he began his photographs staged in the dunes and thus developed his signature: carefully composed images, without any particular narrative, and already tending towards a surrealism reminiscent of Magritte. Unfortunately, although he did not participate in the world conflict of 1939-1945, it interrupted his artistic activity and above all announced the disinterest that would be suffered by any art moving away from realism during the post-war years.

However, with the publication of Warabe Goyomi (“Children the Year Around”) in 1971, a book with more realistic tones that still retained the dreamlike world of its author, Shoij Ueda was able to bounce back and conquer a wider audience. His recognition grew to the point of being presented in Arles in 1978, from which point on he was regularly exhibited in Europe.

After his wife's death in 1983, he stopped taking photographs before his son encouraged him to resume his work, which led him to take fashion photographs on the Tottori dunes. After two surreal and even experimental color series, he died of a heart attack at the age of 83.

Beyond having persevered throughout his life to create a true imaginary world through photography, Shoji Ueda has also managed to raise it to the rank of classic. It has been included in numerous collections around the world, including those of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (USA), the Centre Pompidou and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), both in Paris (FR); and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo (MOMAT), (JP).