Literature

Biography:

The Japanese photographer Akira Satō (1930 - 2002) was born in Tokyo. He received widespread acclaim for his graphic and experimental photographs of women published in his seminal photobook, Woman. This enigmatic collection of portraits subtly meshes character studies with prevailing contemporary fashion trends. Whilst studying economics at Yokohama National University, Satō became an avid reader of LIFE and other photographic and fashion magazines at the American CIE library in Hibiya, Tokyo. He graduated in 1953 and one year later became a freelance photographer, specialising in fashion.

In 1957 Satō was selected to participate in the exhibition Junin no me (‘Eyes of Ten’), with a key group of other Japanese photographers who are considered to be amongst the most influential photographers of the late 20th century, including Ishimoto, Kawada, Tōmatsu, Narahara and Hosoe. The artist collective which formed out of this exhibition, called VIVO, was significant not only for the high aesthetic and conceptual quality of its members’ output, but also for the influential legacy of subjective expression through photography which it passed on to the next generation; Vivo members personally mentored Daidō Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Satō was the subject of a series of one-man shows starting in 1961, whilst he continued to feature widely in contemporary photography publications and camera magazines. He specialized in black and white portraits of women, especially with their faces in close-up. In 1963 he travelled to the US and later to Europe before returning to Japan in 1965 where he remained until his death.