Sakae Tamura (photographer) explained

was a Japanese photographer, prominent in the years before the war.

Born in Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture,^[1] Tamura graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography (Tōkyō Shashin Senmon Gakkō; now Tokyo Polytechnic University) and entered Oriental (Orientaru Shashin Kōgyō) in 1928 and became editor of . He was an active contributor to the magazine and in Japan Photography Association (Nihon Kōga Kyōkai), created in 1928 and a successor to the Japan Photographic Art Association (Nihon Kōga Geijutsu Kyōkai). He was a leading figure in the (Shinkō Shashin Kenkyūkai), formed in 1930.

Tamura's work was influenced both by pictorialism and by .

Tamura is particularly known for his portraits, and Shiroi hana (White flower, 1931) is the best-known of these and widely anthologized.^[2] Okatsuka says that it expresses a certain lyricism but “displays a more sophisticated sense of maturity” than the works of his contemporaries Masataka Takayama and Jun Watanabe.^[3]

Books by Tamura

• Seibutsu shashin no utsushikata . Tokyo: Sōgeisha, 1952. A guide to photographing still lifes.
• Sakuga no daiippo (^[4]). Tokyo: Genkōsha, 1954. A guide to the practice of photography.

Notes

1. Matsumoto claims - in “Sakka kaisetsu” (About the photographers) - that he was born in Tokyo; this article instead follows the Biographic Dictionary and Founding as later and perhaps better informed works.
2. Handsome reproductions of two different versions appear as plate 52 of Matsumoto, ed., Collection (reddish), and plates 32 and 93 of Founding and Tucker, ed., History respectively (much more neutral).
3. Akiko Okatsuka, in Founding, 20.
4. On the cover, a nonstandard glyph is used for 画: 二 enclosing 田.

Sources

• Kaneko Ryūichi. “The Origins and Development of Japanese Art Photography.” Pp. 100 - 42 of Tucker, ed., History. Pp. 110 - 13, 137.
• Matsuda Takako. “Tamura Sakae”. In Tucker, ed., History, p. 363.
• Matsumoto Norihiko., ed. A Collection of Japanese Photographs 1912 - 1940. Tokyo: Shashinkosha, 1990. Despite its English-only title, the book is in Japanese only. It is a lavish production (if unpaginated), not offered for sale and instead presumably distributed to customers.
• Nihon kindai shashin no seiritsu to tenkai / The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan. Tokyo: Tokyo Museum of Photography, 1995.
• Nihon no shashinka / Biographic Dictionary of Japanese Photography. Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2005. . Despite the English-language alternative title, all in Japanese.
• Taidan: Shashin kono gojūnen (Discussions: The last fifty years of photography). Edited by the staff of Asahi Camera. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1974. Ihei Kimura interviews Tamura in chapter 7, "Shinkō shashin tezukuri no aji" .
• Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. .