Kaoru Usui

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Usui worked to set up a series of amateur photography groups in Nagoya. One of these was Shūdan 35, whose members in 1952 included the young Shōmei Tōmatsu. Between 1950 and 1955 Usui won the annual award in Camera three times, his works there being highly praised by Ken Domon, whose realist approach Usui followed enthusiastically. Usui was not content to stick with realism: some of the photographs from his staged series of the 1980s Arsène Lupin appeared in Popular Photography and the self-published book of them is well regarded. Usui won Aichi-ken Geijutsu Bunka Shōreishō, a cultural award from Aichi Prefecture, in 1994. At around this time, he — like Shōji Ueda and several other photographers of his era — again came to enjoy photography with a besutan camera or lens. He died in December 2010 at the age of 93.

• Tobera no ki no shita (Under the tobira tree). Nagoya: Kaoru Usui, 1973. • Kaidō. Nagoya: Kaidō Shuppan Iinkai, 1984. Black and white photographs of kaidō (Japan's ancient roads). • Arusēnu Rupan / Arsène Lupin. Nagoya: Kaoru Usui, 1985. • Amachi Shigeru gojūnen no kōbō. Nagoya: Usui Kaoru Shashin no Mise, 1987. Photographs of Shigeru Amachi. • Sengo o ikita kodomo-tachi. Nagoya: Usui Kaoru Shashin no Mise, 1988. • Watakushi no Shōwa shashinshi: Shōwa 10-nen yori Shōwa 35-nen made (My photographic history of Shōwa: From 1935 to 1970). Nagoya: Usui Kaoru Shashin no Mise, 1991. Black and white photographs of this 35-year period within the Shōwa period. • Igaguri, otenba, gaki-daishō. Nagoya: Kyōdo Shuppansha, 1993.. Photographs of and text about children from the late 1940s until the mid sixties; captions and texts in Japanese only. • (Joint work.) Kita-ku, Nishi-ku-hen: Minoji, Kisoji ni sotte. Nagoya: Kyōdo Shuppansha, 1993.. • Shikisoku-zeku: Aichi-ken Geijutsu Bunka Senshō jushō kinen sanbusaku (All is vanity: Works in three parts for the Aichi Prefecture Geijutsu Bunka award). Nagoya: Kaidō Shuppan Iinkai, 1996. Color photographs, including a set taken with a besutan lens. • Ningen o ikiru. Nagoya: Kyōdo Shuppansha, 1998.. • With Toshirō Maruo. Amachi Shigeru. Tokyo: Wides, 1999.. Photographs of Shigeru Amachi. • Shōwa sanjū nendai no Seto: Tōjō no yama to machi to hitobito. Seto, Aichi: Seto City Art Museum, 2000. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Seto City Art Museum; photographs of Seto from 1955–64, especially landscapes and children. • Usui Kaoru ga kiroku shita sengo o ikita kodomo-tachi. Gifu: Gifu Shinbunsha, 2002..