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Man and Woman #1

1960
(Japanese, b. 1933)
Japan, 20th century
gelatin silver print
Image: 24.6 x 16.9 cm (9 11/16 x 6 5/8 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1993.215
© Eikoh Hosoe
Location: not on view
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

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Description

Technical discipline, allegory, the tension of opposites, and a lyric sense of design characterize the photographs of Eikoh Hosoe. Fusing the figurative with the abstract, he manipulates cropping, toning, and lighting to create images that are at once intimate and universal meditations. One of Hosoe’s most characteristic series, Man and Woman (1959–60) explores the human figure as both an elegant abstraction and a charged erotic subject. His images convey a theatrical and literary narrative, challenging the repressive moral codes of postwar Japan. The mysterious Man and Woman #1 depicts a heavily made-up Butoh dancer suspending a dead fish in her hand. The photograph’s exaggeration of power roles also suggests an intriguing relationship between female and male, life and death, and man and animal.
Man and Woman #1

Man and Woman #1

1960

Eikoh Hosoe

(Japanese, b. 1933)
Japan, 20th century

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