Yamazawa, Eiko: What I Am Doing (New Edition)

Focusing on Eiko Yamazawa's abstract photographic series "What I Am Doing," produced in the 1970s and 1980s in both color and black-and-white, while also reproducing her seminal 1962 photobook "Far and Near," which reveals the origins of her abstract practice.

Born in Osaka in 1899, Eiko Yamazawa studied photography in the United States in the 1920s and opened a portrait studio in Osaka in 1931 as the first female professional photographer in Japan.

After retiring in 1960, she devoted herself to abstract color photography, developing a highly conceptual and experimental body of work. However, Yamazawa’s work has never been examined in detail before, because her distinctive style had nothing in common with the mainstream of Japanese photography.

As a result, she has been largely forgotten since her death in 1995. The main purpose of this book is therefore to situate her work in the history of photography beyond a national framework by examining her career in relation to American photography.

Consisting of four chapters, the book is organized in reverse chronological order to explore the background of Yamazawa’s abstract photography. The first chapter features Yamazawa’s abstract photography series "What I Am Doing" from the 1970s and 1980s, which includes highly conceptual and self-reflexive pieces in which she shot her camera supplies as well as re-photographing her work from the past.

The second chapter reproduces Yamazawa’s 1962 photo book "Far and Near" in its entirety, while the third presents examples of American photography that she was exposed to, and the last examines her early portraits and related documents to clarify the starting point.

Featuring 158 plates, the volume spans Yamazawa’s entire career, bringing together early portraits, photographs from her wartime evacuation, archival documents, and works that reveal her engagement with modern American photography.

In addition to essays by two curators based on recent research, the volume reprints three essays written by Yamazawa in the 1920s and 1950s, and concludes with a detailed biography and bibliography. 

Title: What I Am Doing (New Edition)
Publisher,Year: Akaaka Art Publishing, 2026
Author: Eiko Yamazawa
Language: Japanese and English
Format: Hardcover
Size: 297 × 210 mm, 224 pages, 158 images
ISBN: 978-4-86541-231-4