Portraiture and Early Studio Photography in China and Japan

Until recently, the history and production of early photographic studios in China and Japan have been largely neglected. As the first collection of its kind, this group of essays not only analyses photographic portraiture in these countries for the global market, but it also specifically addresses the domestic adoptions, adaptations, and practices of photographic technology for local forms of self-representation. Thus, the authors examine the studio photograph as a collaboration between photographer and sitter, the diverse performance of identity and gender as invoked in portrait sittings and images, its association with and incorporation into ’traditional’ visual practices and cultural systems, as well as the studio as social and cultural site. This volume aims to invoke debate on the photographic likeness - its producers, subjects, and viewers as modern ’citizens’ - and argues for the historical significance of the photographic studio as a social and commercial space central to the formation of modern self-identities and communities. In drawing on new archival materials and in examining the portrait and the portrait studio from a variety of theoretical and historical approaches, this innovative collection of essays seeks to expand our understanding of an important subject of growing academic, curatorial, and public interest.

Luke Gartlan is Lecturer in the History of Photography, School of Art History, University of St Andrews, UK. Roberta Wue is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Irvine, USA.