Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography Since 1945

This book is an accessible and visually rich study of Japanese photography since 1945 by an experienced curator specializing in Japanese art and culture. 

This rich volume provides one of the first overviews of Japanese photography to be published in English. Drawing on extensive research, Lena Fritsch traces the development of Japanese photography chronologically, from the severity of post-war Realism to the diverse ingenuity of photography in contemporary Japan. Interspersed are fascinating original interviews with some of the most influential photographers of each era, including Daido Moriyama.

Ravens and Red Lipstick offers a visually bold survey of Japanese photography’s recent history. Fritsch masterfully frames each movement with their business, education, and art-institutional backdrops — she shows the consumerism and intense political debates of 1960s and ’70s Japan, for example, to be central to the rough style of the “Provoke” artists. Fritsch’s great achievement is to bring observations from a range of disciplines to bear on her commentary with imagination and clarity. As a result, this comprehensively illustrated volume is both an accessible introduction and an illuminating work of analysis of Japanese photography since 1945.