Shiotani Teiko

Place: Tottori

Born: 1899

Death: 1988

Biography:

Teikō Shiotani (塩谷 定好, Shiotani Teikō, 24 October 1899 – 28 October 1988) was a Japanese photographer whose work in the late 1920s and early 1930s in and near Tottori, where he lived, made him a major figure in Japanese pictorialism. Despite living far from any metropolis, Shiotani was famous among photographers nationwide. He portrayed landscapes, seascapes, priests at a local temple, his family, and other quotidian matters and scenes; his images at times unmediated, at others exploiting lens aberration or using darkroom effects. Among the photographers directly influenced by him was Shōji Ueda, who lived nearby. As ideals and fashions in photography changed, Shiotani's work was largely forgotten in postwar Japan until interest was reawakened by a 1975 book devoted to his work; he later became known outside Japan thanks to an exhibition of Japanese photography that toured Europe from 1979 to 1982. Many prints made by Shiotani survive in museum collections, and since 2016 four photobooks largely or exclusively dedicated to his work have been published in Japan.