Image Not Available

Study

Maker Hiromu Kira (American, 1898 - 1991)

ClassificationsPHOTOGRAPHS

Dateca. 1929

Mediumsilver print

Dimensions13 1/4 x 10 7/8 in. (33.7 x 27.6 cm.)

InscribedInscribed on recto of mount: Hiromu Kira; lower left corner: 83; on verso of mount in ink: Study Hiromu Kira. 256 E. First Street, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S.A.; in blue crayon: A; RPS/ 5 wide/ 133 Signed on recto of mount: H. Kira, A.R.P.S. Stamp: 3116 Label: Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. 1929. Camera Club of New York, Jan. 1930. Chicago Camera Club, APril, 1930. Camera Associates of Boston City Club, May, 1930. Osl Kamera Klub, October, 1930.

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Label TextPhotographer Hiromu Kira (1898-1991) was born in Hawaii, educated in Japan, and in 1916 settled in the Pacific Northwest. He was a founding member of the Seattle Camera Club and part of the artistic community of Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo in the 1920s and 30s.

With its sharp focus, high detail, and emphasis on form and geometry, Study reflects the artist’s modernist approach, developed after moving to Los Angeles in 1926, through dialogue with Edward Weston, Margaret Mather, and other local and international photographers. Kira wrote in a 1928 Camera Craft issue:

“Since I have started the study of still life, I [feel] most keenly the importance of the fact that one must plan with great care the subject, arrangement, composition, and lighting all by himself. This process accordingly takes much painful study, yet I find more pleasure and interest in such venture.”

Status

Not on view

Object number86.30.5