Kusakabe Kimbei: Photographs of Late 19th-Century Japan

In 1881, the Japanese photographer Kusakabe Kimbei opened his own workshop in the Benten-dōri quarter of Yokohama. He’d soon establish himself as one of the most respected and successful Japanese photographers of his generation, opening another studio in Yokohama’s Honmachi quarter 1889, and also a branch in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo. The selection here is from the collection held by The Getty in Los Angeles, focusing mostly on work from the early part of Kimbei’s career.