Noriaki Yokosuka is a gifted photographer who has lead the advertisement and fashion worlds in the 20th-century Japan with works of first-class sophistication. Even today, the series of posters he created for Shiseido and Parco with Eiko Ishioka stand out brilliantly as a legend. In 1982 he became the first Japanese freelance staff photographer for Italian Vogue, German Vogue and French Vogue. He has also created some spectacular works in collaboration with Issey Miyake and Sayoko Yamaguchi. Unfortunately, however, the entire picture of Yokosuka’s works including his original body of works remain unfathomed.
We are happy to present you the early works “Optics” and the late works “Burning Body ” by Noriaki Yokosuka, whose death at the age of 65 is sorely missed.


“Yokosuka was a photographer who loved to operate at extremes. Whether he was photographing people or objects, he pursued them to the extreme. However, in his late years, he slowly shifted course. I don’t know quite how you would label this. but perhaps we could say it was a Taoist-influenced perception, or one based on Yokosuka’s personal interpretation of Zen.”

Seigo Matsuoka

“Today’s Japan lacks journalism for photography. It lacks galleries which are capable of making real assessment. It lacks platforms for photographers to expose their pure self in a serious manner....This is an age when you need to have an entertainment feature to survive, which may be why Noriaki had not received fair recognition for a long time. After all, he was a traditional photographer.”

“It could be that now is the time for Noriaki to appear on the Western world. For that to happen, you would need a group of staff who are skilled in strategy formation on presenting and disseminating his works. If you have that in place, then his photography will surely give off a mythical radiance.

Eiko Ishioka

excerpt from Yokosuka’s posthumously-published photo collection, “The Photon & Ogre” （parco publishing, 2005）

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EMON PHOTO GALLERY
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