Issei Suda - Photography - 須田 一政, Anonymous Japanese Master

Anonymous Japanese Master, Issei Suda 須田 一政, born 24 April 1940 – 7 March 2019 was a Japanese photographer who “combined a pure appreciation of Japanese customs with a sharp investigative eye“. While the West has been fascinated by certain elements of Japanese photography for decades, there are important figures who have been overlooked—Issei Suda, a precise observer of the everyday theater of the streets is one such artist. Issei Suda occupies a unique position in the history of Japanese photography: deeply important yet having received relatively little attention for his work from the West. Perhaps owing to the fact that he never became associated with any particular school, he remained outside the widely disseminated narratives told about Japanese photography. While more celebrated figures, such as Daido Moriyama and the Provoke Group are well known, Suda labored in a surprising degree of anonymity. Perhaps another problem for Suda is that his techniques were