DAIDO MORIYAMA
HASSELBLAD AWARD WINNER 2019

The Hasselblad Foundation is pleased to announce that Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama is the recipient of the 2019 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for the sum of SEK 1,000,000 (approx. USD 110,000).

»I am delighted about the news that I will receive the Hasselblad Award. I believe this award recognizes my lifelong commitment to photographing the streets and I look forward to taking many more street photographs. Thank you so much.«
Daido Moriyama


The award ceremony will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden on October 13, 2019. A symposium will be held on October 14, followed by the opening of an exhibition of Moriyama’s work at the Hasselblad Center, and the release of a new book about the artist, published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

The Foundation’s citation regarding the Hasselblad Award Laureate 2019, Daido Moriyama:
»Daido Moriyama is one of Japan’s most renowned photographers, celebrated for his radical approach to both medium and subject. Moriyama’s images embrace a highly subjective but authentic approach. Reflecting a harsh vision of city life and its chaos of everyday existence and unusual characters, his work occupies a unique space between the illusory and the real. Moriyama became the most prominent artist to emerge from the short-lived yet pro-foundly influential Provoke movement, which played an important role in liberating photography from tradition and interrogating the very nature of the medium. His bold, uncompromising style has helped engender widespread recognition of Japanese photography within an international context. Influen-ced by photographer William Klein, the writings of Jack Kerouac and James Baldwin, and the experimental theatre of Shūji Terayama, Moriyama in turn has inspired subsequent generations of photographers, not only in Japan, but also around the world.«

The Hasselblad Award Jury, which submitted its proposal to the Hasselblad Foundation’s Board of Directors, consisted of:
Paul Roth, Chair
Curator and Director, Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto

Ann-Christin Bertrand
Curator, C/O Berlin Foundation, Berlin

Susanna Brown
Curator, Photographs, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Kristen Lubben
Executive Director, Magnum Foundation, New York

Thyago Noguiera
Curator, Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo

»Daido Moriyama’s depiction of life is uncensored and he is not afraid of neither the ugly nor the beautiful. He is truly a groundbreaking photographer and an inspiration to people from many creative fields, not just within the art and photography community. We are thrilled to be working with Daido Moriyama and his vast catalogue of images and publications and we hope to convey the richness of his continuous, obsessive scrutiny of the world in both our upcoming exhibition and catalogue.« say curators at the Hasselblad Foundation, Sara Walker and Louise Wolthers.

»An iconic figure of Japanese photography, revered worldwide for his radical aesthetic, Daido Moriyama is surely one of the most significant and influential photographers in history. For a whole generation of viewers, the chaotic rest-lessness and rough beauty of his classic images convey a universal urban psychology, a profound empathy for the alienation and dislocation common to all post-industrial cities. Daido Moriyama’s images seem envisioned rather than recorded – scenes from the modern, global metropolis of our collective imagination.« states Paul Roth, Director of Toronto’s Ryerson Image Centre and Chair of the Hasselblad Award Jury 2019.

»I am delighted to about the news that I will receive the Hasselblad Award. I believe this award recognizes my lifelong commitment to photographing the streets and I look forward to taking many more street photographs. Thank you so much.«
Daido Moriyama

»2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the Hasselblad Foundation, and we find it very fitting that a photographer with such a wide appeal and long, diverse career as Daido Moriyama is this year’s award winner.« says Christina Backman, Director of the Hasselblad Foundation.




Biography Daido Moriyama
Daido Moriyama was born in Osaka, Japan in 1938.

After studying graphic design, Moriyama first explored photography under Takeji Iwamiya. He moved to Tokyo in 1961 to become an assistant to the great Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe while the latter was working on his famous series Ordeal by Roses with writer Yukio Mishima. Moriyama began to work independently in 1964. His first monograph, Japan, a Photo Theater (1968), was immediately acclaimed by the artistic community and was followed by several books that became references in the history of photography, such as Farewell Photography (1972), Hunter (1972), Another Country in New York (1974), Light and Shadow (1982), A Journey to Nakaji (1987), and Lettre à St. Loup (1990), to name only a few. Moriyama has published close to 300 books to date.

As a member of the Provoke movement, which he joined in 1968 for the second issue of its eponymous magazine, Moriyama delivered rich and densely composed photographs. His work, often described as raw and troubled, gave birth to a new street photography practice in which the artist roams the street, confronting and being confronted by public spaces. Moriyama started manipulating silkscreen printing in the seventies, using the technique for his books as well as exhibition pieces. The artist also organized interactive events and installations as a way to adapt his discourse to different spaces and situations. Through several auto-biographical texts, such as Memories of a Dog (1984 and 1997), he has credited Eugène Atget, Jack Kerouac, William Klein, Nicéphore Niépce, Shomei Tomatsu, Andy Warhol, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand for inspiring his work and style.

Moriyama’s work has had a significant impact worldwide. In 1974, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented his work as part of the first major Western exhibition focused on Japanese photography. His photographs have since been showcased in many major exhibitions: at Tate Modern in London (William Klein + Daido Moriyama, 2012); at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Stray Dog, 1999); at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Hunter, 1999); at the National Art Museum in Osaka (On the Road, 2011); at Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris (2003 & 2016); and at the Rencontres d’Arles (Labyrinth + Monochrome, 2013).

Moriyama’s work is in the collections of numerous prominent public institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Moriyama has had major solo shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Folkwang Essen, Germany; the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; and Tate Modern, London.