(September 17, 1906 – July 22, 1987) was a Japanese photographer and a prominent figure in the New Photography movement in the years before the war.
Born in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture,Matsumoto claims in “Sakka kaisetsu” (, 'About the photographers') that Tamura was born in Tokyo; this contradicts the later Biographic Dictionary and Founding, which claim he was born in Ōtsu. Tamura graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography (now Tokyo Polytechnic University) and entered Oriental Photo Industrial in 1928 and became editor of Photo Times. He was an active contributor to the magazine and in Japan Photography Association (, Nihon Kōga Kyōkai), created in 1928 and a successor to the Japan Photographic Art Association (, Nihon Kōga Geijutsu Kyōkai). He was a leading figure in the (, Shinkō Shashin Kenkyūkai), formed in 1930.
Tamura's work was influenced both by pictorialism and by New Photography.
Tamura is particularly known for his portraits, and Shiroi hana (, White flower, 1931) is the best-known of these and widely anthologized.Handsome reproductions of two different versions appear as plate 52 of Matsumoto, ed., Collection (reddish), and plates 32 and 93 of Founding and Tucker, ed., History respectively (much more neutral). Okatsuka says that it expresses a certain lyricism but “displays a more sophisticated sense of maturity” than the works of his contemporaries Masataka Takayama and Jun Watanabe.Akiko Okatsuka, in Founding, 20.
Books by Tamura
Seibutsu shashin no utsushikata (). Tokyo: Sōgeisha, 1952. A guide to photographing still lifes. Sakuga no daiippo (On the cover, a nonstandard glyph is used for 画: 二 enclosing 田.). Tokyo: Genkōsha, 1954. A guide to the practice of photography.
Notes
Sources
Kaneko Ryūichi. “The Origins and Development of Japanese Art Photography.” Pp. 100–42 of Tucker, ed., History. Pp. 110–13, 137. Matsuda Takako. “Tamura Sakae”. In Tucker, ed., History, p. 363. Matsumoto Norihiko. (), ed. A Collection of Japanese Photographs 1912–1940. Tokyo: Shashinkosha, 1990. Despite its English-only title, the book is in Japanese only. It is a lavish production (if unpaginated), not offered for sale and instead presumably distributed to customers. Nihon kindai shashin no seiritsu to tenkai () / The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan. Tokyo: Tokyo Museum of Photography, 1995. Nihon no shashinka () / Biographic Dictionary of Japanese Photography. Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2005. . Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese. Taidan: Shashin kono gojūnen (, Discussions: The last fifty years of photography). Edited by the staff of Asahi Camera. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1974. Ihei Kimura interviews Tamura in chapter 7, "Shinkō shashin tezukuri no aji" (). Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. .