Kusakabe Kimbei
1880s Photo Album
From the New York Public Library
Digital Collections
Kusakabe Kimbei
1841-1934
Kusakabe Kimbei was the most famous Japanese photographer of the second generation. He was once an assistant photographer in Beato’s studio and later established his own studio in 1880.
In this album of the 1880s, Kimbei’s photographs were painstakingly hand tinted. Western tourists saw the addition of color as a display of meticulous Japanese craftsmanship that heightened the photographs’ artistic quality.
