Please join us as Dr. Karen M. Fraser, Professor of Art History at the University of San Francisco, discusses the photography of Ogawa Kazumasa, currently on view in Witnessing War: Ogawa Kazumasa and Visual Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Japan. This talk will provide an overview of Ogawa’s work, exploring the role of photography in Meiji-era Japanese and transcultural media. 

Ogawa Kazumasa (1860-1929) was, arguably, the most successful and widely recognized photographer of Meiji-era Japan (1868-1912). As a key figure in cross-cultural exchanges between Japan and the West during this period, Ogawa published some 300 photographically-illustrated books, including English, Japanese, and bilingual volumes on topics ranging from celebrated geisha of Tokyo to the Russo-Japanese War album featured in the current Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition.  

This presentation is offered  in conjunction with Witnessing War: Ogawa Kazumasa and Visual Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Japan, on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through December 15, 2024.  

Free and open to the public. No registration is required. Presented by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

Pictured: Ogawa Kazumasa, Photogravure from three folios depicting the Russo-Japanese War; Generals Nogi and Stoessel, and their Staffs in the Garden of the Meeting-Place at Shuishihying, 1/5/1905, photogravure. Bowdoin College Museum, Brunswick, Maine. Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund.