Background
Masao Yamamoto was born in 1957 in Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
2016
Masao Yamamoto signing 'Tori' monograph that an eponymous exhibition of his works at the International Center of Photography. Photo by Radius Books.
Masao Yamamoto with several of his small photos in the background.
昌男 山本
Masao Yamamoto was born in 1957 in Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
Masao Yamamoto studied oil painting under the tutelage of Goro Saito.
Masao Yamamoto started his career as a painter and shifted to photography at the age of eighteen impressed by original prints of a landscapist Ansel Adams. Though, he saved painterly look in many of his small-scale photos. The first solo exhibition of his works took place in San Francisco in 1994. Within the course of time, his poetic blurred images caught the attention of the art dealers and the solo show in New York City promoted by the New York Times boosted the photographer’s popularity throughout the country.
Since then, Yamamoto has produced in total four series of missed media photos, with the recent one entitled ‘Shizuku=Cleanse’. The artificially aged images, sometimes with the help of the viewers, like it was with the ‘Book of Ku’, are often gathered in installations. He has published several corresponding books and catalogs as well. His artworks have been shown internationally, including Japan, the United States, Europe, Russia, and Brazil.
Masao Yamamoto’s art is represented by many art spaces in France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, including the Mizuma Art Gallery in Japan.
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Quotations: "I have always sensed that there is something precious in nature. I have an impression that something very vague and large might exist beyond the small things I can feel."
Masao Yamamoto is married to a woman named Reiko.