The American photographer W. Eugene Smith made a significant impact on the history of photojournalism. The works on display are from the Aileen M. Smith Collection at The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.

Smith (1918–1978) worked for Life and several other pictorial magazines during the golden age of photojournalism in the 1930s and 1950s. Always placing himself in the shoes of his subjects, Smith brought a humanist perspective to his passionate photographs, which question the nature of news photography and have continued to inspire many people. Possessing exceptional photographic and printing skills as well as a highly developed esthetic sense, Smith perfected the photo essay—an expressive format consisting of several pages of photographs and short texts—as an art form. He authored several exceptional masterpieces including Country Doctor (1948), Spanish Village (1950–1951), A Man of Mercy (1954), and Pittsburgh (1955–1956).

As a photographer Smith also had strong links to Japan. From1971, Smith and Aileen Mioko Smith, his partner and spouse at the time, stayed for three years in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture. The photo collection “Minamata,” in which Smith documented the reality of mercury pollution, has once again started to draw attention as the inspiration for the U.S. film “Minamata” produced in 2020 (director: Andrew Levitas, leading actor: Johnny Depp).

In collaboration with the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK), this exhibition presents about sixty works by W. Eugene Smith handpicked from the Aileen M. Smith Collection held at MoMAK. In total, the collection consists of 284 photographs carefully chosen by Aileen Mioko Smith, who safeguarded his photographs for many years. The collection, which spans nearly the whole of Smith’s career as a photographer, is of the highest standard in terms of both content and quality. The majority of the precious prints were produced by Smith himself. As such, they give us a true picture of the photographer.

Profound and beautiful, the original prints by Smith inspire us not only to contemplate the origin of photography but also to reconsider the very essence of photography. Works from the Aileen M. Smith Collection at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto are seldom exhibited in Tokyo.