Shomei Tomatsu
Beer Bottle After the Atomic Bomb Explosion

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Artist Shomei Tomatsu(Japanese, 1930–2012)Japanese, 1930–2012

CultureJapanese

Titles

Beer Bottle After the Atomic Bomb Explosion
from the series 11:02–Nagasaki

Date1961, printed later

PlaceNagasaki, Japan

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 17 13/16 × 15 7/16 in. (45.3 × 39.2 cm)
Sheet: 23 5/16 × 19 5/8 in. (59.2 × 49.9 cm)

Credit LineThe Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

Object number91.1170

Current Location

The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building

Gallery 208

On view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

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 16 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 the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, killing an estimated 70,000 people. The relics stand as a visceral surrogate for the human trauma, a visual reminder that, although the life of the city continued, it was forever changed.
ProvenanceAllan Chasanoff, New York; given to MFAH, 1991.
Exhibition History"Tradition and the Unpredictable: The Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, January 16–March 27, 1994.

"Optical/Perceptual: Photographs from the Allan Chasanoff Collection," Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, October 6, 2008–January 4, 2009.

"Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and Images of Nonviolence," The Menil Collection, Houston, October 2, 2014–February 1, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in pencil on sheet verso: '84

Signed in pencil on sheet verso

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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