Frank (Sakae) Matsura (1873–1913) was an early 20th-century Japanese photographer who travelled from Japan to America in 1901 where he lived until his early death.[1] More than 1,800 of his frontier-era photographs and glass plate negatives have been preserved by the Okanogan County Historical Society and Washington State University.[2]
He was born in 1873,[3] a descendant of Emperor Saga, the 52nd emperor of Japan, through the Matsuura, lords of Hirado Island (northwest of Kyūshū).[4] For unknown reasons, Matsura led his friends and acquaintances to believe he was seven years younger than he actually was. For example, the US Census sheet for 1910 lists his age as 28,[5] and the headstone on his grave states "aged 32 years" in 1913.[6] Researchers discovered his passport application dated 1901 for a "Sakae Matsuura" that lists his age at 27.[7] Matsura's earliest photos give his name as Frank S. Matsuura.[7]
Frank S. Matsura's father and uncle were samurai, serving Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 15th Shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate.[8] After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the family entered the tea business. Matsura's parents died, and he was raised by an uncle and aunt, learning English at a school they founded in Tokyo.[8] As further evidence of his family's high standing, he possessed a ceremonial sword.[7]
In 1903, he answered an ad in a Seattle newspaper for a cook's helper and laundryman placed by Jesse Dillabough, owner of the Elliott Hotel in Conconully, Washington, and was hired.[9] He arrived with his camera equipment and began photographing the Okanogan region. His photographic subjects were wide and varied and included portraits, infrastructure projects such as the construction of Conconully Dam, Native Americans, celebrations and parades, stage coaches, riverboats, farming and ranching, and virtually all aspects of the lives of the people of Okanogan county.
For four years he worked at the Elliott Hotel, developing his pictures in the laundry, before relocating to the growing city of Okanogan in 1907.[10] In Okanogan, he built a two-room store on First Avenue which served as a studio and darkroom.
Although business was initially slow, Matsura became popular for his portraits, and promotional photos of the Okanogan. The Okanogan Commercial Club distributed his work in brochures and postcards, and several images were exhibited at the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (AYPE) of 1909 in Seattle, where they attracted favorable notice. In fact, the AYPE official photographer and photographic curator J. A. McCormick sent a letter to Matsura informing him that Matsura's collection of photographs was the best he had secured of all the photographs he had received from all over the nation to be displayed during the AYPE.[11]
Some of Matsura's work features a distinctly zany streak, particularly in costume photographs featuring local residents, or a photograph in which the Okanogan baseball team, Sam's Colts, imagine and dress themselves as old men. Matsura also had a pioneering spirit, participating in and photographing the clearing of the first 26-mile auto trail between Okanogan to Condon Ferry, cutting forty miles off the transit from Okanogan to Spokane.
Matsura maintained close relations with many prominent local families and photographed them often. The Dillaboughs, Nelsons, Browns, Schallers and Gards appear in many of his most inventive and comical photos. His subjects were captured at birthday parties, town events, school graduations and in formal studio portraits. His landscape images capture the end of the pioneer era, and his portraits of Native Americans remain some of the finest captured during the era.
Matsura candidly disclosed that he suffered from tuberculosis, but Okanogan was profoundly shocked when he died suddenly on June 16, 1913, at the age of only 39.[12] Matsura was a respected and beloved figure in this frontier region that he documented with his camera. His funeral attracted more than three hundred Native American and pioneer mourners.[13] A newspaper article[14] which appeared in the June 20, 1913 edition of the Okanogan Independent states in part:
Matsura was buried in Okanogan and much of his work went to a close friend, Judge William Compton Brown. Brown ultimately donated it to the Washington State University archives, which has catalogued the images and placed a valuable collection on the internet. Several heavy boxes of Matsura's original glass negatives were discovered in Brown's garage after his death in 1963 and these were donated to the Okanogan County Historical Society by Eva Wilson, Brown's longtime caregiver, at the suggestion of Joseph Wicks, who had succeeded Brown as the Superior Court Judge of Okanogan County.[15]
In 1984, TV Asahi in Japan aired a two-hour docudrama starring Morio Kazama as Matsura. Collections and exhibits of Matsura's work have also been published in Japan.
In 2002, Matsura was mentioned in the last page of "Ten no Taka" ("Sky Hawk") as a photographer of indigenous peoples of the United States.
In 2024, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture exhibited Matsura's work in the "Frank S. Matsura: Portraits from the borderland" exhibition.[16]