Shomei Tomatsu
Atomic Bomb Damage: Wristwatch Stopped at 11:02, August 9, 1945

Artist Shomei TomatsuJapanese, 1930–2012

CultureJapanese

Titles

Atomic Bomb Damage: Wristwatch Stopped at 11:02, August 9, 1945
from the series 11:02–Nagasaki

Date1961, printed 1969

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 13 3/16 × 13 13/16 in. (33.5 × 35.1 cm)
Frame (outer): 22 3/8 × 22 3/8 × 1 1/4 in. (56.9 × 56.9 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Janice and Robert C. McNair at "One Great Night in November, 2010," in honor of the birth of their grandson, Robert Daniel McNair, and in the hope that during his lifetime there will be peace

Object number2011.243

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionOne of the most influential postwar Japanese photographers, Shōmei Tōmatsu documented social shifts resulting from Japan’s rapid Westernization over the course of his lifetime. In the series 11:02—Nagasaki, made sixteen years after the end of World War II, he documented the misshapen objects kept in a Nagasaki museum archive that reveal the deadly impact of “Fat Man,” the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945. In one second, the bomb killed an estimated 70,000 people. The relics become a visceral surrogate for the human trauma, a visual reminder that, although the life of the city continued, indelible marks remained.
Provenance[Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo]; purchased by MFAH, 2011.
Exhibition History"WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 11 November, 2012 - 3 February, 2013.

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