OGAWA, Kazumasa.

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Things Seen in Japan. First edition, first printing, of this striking portfolio of Japanese views by Ogawa Kazumasa, one of the leading photographers of the late Meiji period. Scenic vistas of Mount Fuji, Lake Ashi, and Kinkakuji in winter are interspersed with images of temples, a tea ceremony, flower arranging, and the imperial theatre. Ogawa's publications are valued for the sharpness and quality of the images.While in the United States in the early 1880s, Ogawa (1860-1929) studied collotype printing with the New York-based Albertype Company. In 1889, he opened Japan's first photoengraving workshop, the Ogawa Shashin Seihanjo, and branched out into collotype printing in 1894. His printing shop supplied the colour collotype floral frontispieces for Frank Brinkley's famous Japan, Described and Illustrated by the Japanese (1897-8). Ogawa was one of the founding members of the Japan Photographic Society, the first Japanese member of the Royal Photographic Society, and the editor of Japan's only photographic journal of the day.A second edition of Things Seen in Japan was published in the late 1910s, but with 36 collotypes only.

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