(b Ibaragi, 1 Jan 1933). Japanese photographer. He studied economics at Rikkyo University (1951-5) and was self-taught in photography. His first photographic success was in the monthly contest of Camera magazine (1952), which was judged by Ken Domon and Ihei Kimura. After graduation he became a staff photographer for the Shichosha publishing company, and in 1959 a freelance photographer. He was one of the founders of the Vivo group, with EIKOH HOSOE and others; at this point he began to take the photographs that were published in such collections as Chizu ('The map'; Tokyo, 1965), a deeply subjective series (see Shigemori, p. 84). Images such as the Japanese flag, the remains of fortifications, the walls of the 'atomic dome' in Hiroshima and photographs of dead soldiers were combined to form a highly contrasted collection. An overwhelming feeling of death suffuses these vivid images of a world where symbolic objects of different orders of reality are thrown together. Kawada's style, marked by his attraction to the physical properties of objects and to the world of imagination, was developed in the publications Seinaru sekai (also published as Sacr? Atavism; Tokyo, 1971), Ludwig II no shiro ('Castle of Ludwig II'; Tokyo, 1979) and The Nude (Tokyo, 1984).
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