Hitomi Watanabe - Todai Zenkyoto - 1969

Todai Zenkyoto

Hitomi Watanabe
San-ichi Publishing Co., Ltd./1969/Japanese/228*258*20

A collection of photographs by Japanese female photographer Hiko Watanabe, “Todai Zenkyoto - What the Todai Struggle Means to Us -” Shinjuku was the base, stage, and battlefield of the cultural movement of the 1960s. Shinjuku Contemporary (1968), a legendary collection of photographs depicting the passionate spirit of the people who gathered there. She also produced “Todai Zenkyoto (1969),” in which she documented the student struggles of the time after becoming interested in the demonstrations she encountered in Shinjuku, and was the only photographer permitted to photograph inside the barricades. Hiko Watanabe is one of the most famous female photographers in postwar Japan. This book is the first edition of the above-mentioned “Todai Zenkyoto,” and differs in editing and composition from the expanded and revised edition published in 2007 in that the first 100+ pages contain photographic illustrations, while the second 100+ pages contain texts by Akiyuki Nosaka, Yoshitaka Yamamoto, and others. In addition to the deep gravure printing, the black-and-white contrasts and the layout with its effective use of shadows, blurs, and blurring clearly show the vividness of the period. (Included in The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990)