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Kusakabe Kimbei was an early Japanese photographer who compiled an extensive collection of 19th and early-20th century photographs. He usually went by his given (firstvanbd Christian don't quite fit in Japan), Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly foreigners, were able to pronounce it. His family name was more difficult. The first photographers in Jaoan were foreigners. Kimbei was hired by Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried to wotk in their studio as a colorist and general assistant. Once he had acquired the necessary technival skills, he opened his own studio in Yokohama (1881). Yokahama is the port of Tokyo. Thus most of his photographs date from the 1880s. After he became establishedhe also opened a studio in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo. Ginza is an exclusive shopping district. He accumulated a wonderful collection of Japanese images. Not only did he take many photographs himself, but he purchased the negatives of other early photographs. He purchased the negatives of his formner employers (Felice Beato and of Stillfried). He also purchased the negatives of Uchida Kuichi and Ueno Hikoma in Nagasaki. Kimbei was active for over three decades. He has left us some of the best images of Meiji Japan. We see city streets and buildings. But there also are many images of families and groups showing families and cultural roles. Kimbei stopped working as a photographer just before World War I (1912-13). Photographic studios mostly took mportraits, but Kenbei did a good deal of genre work. A good example is sailor boys of Yokahama.
Mio Wakita. "Selling Japan: Kusakabe Kimbei's Image of Japanese Women," History of Photography (jpornal,
Volume 33, Issue 2 (May 2009), pp. 209-23.
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