Gen Ōtsuka

was a renowned Japanese photographer.

He was born on May 10, 1912, in the Kita ward in Tokyo, Japan. His father, Otsuka Masayoshi, was a pioneer of photographic retouching. After graduating secondary school in 1929, his father encouraged him to study photography at Tokyo Industrial Arts High School (currently part of Chiba University). He graduated in 1933.

Otsuka was a photographer who worked in various photographic styles. He was not tethered to specific photographic techniques or motifs. He was a leader in the Tokyo-based photojournalism that focused on social issues. But he was also a well established portrait photographer. He worked for the Asahi Newspaper.

Father's Influence Otsuka Gen was born in Tokyo, but his father, Masayoshi, was originally from the town of Toyotsu in Fukuoka prefecture. The family in Toyotsu owned a coal mine, so Masayoshi grew up privileged and entered Ueno Art College in Tokyo to pursue his artistic ambitions. But during University, the family's coal mine was destroyed due to a natural disaster that financially ruined the family, forcing Masayoshi to begin working as an art teacher soon after graduating. Forced to give up his ambitions as a painter, Masayoshi picked up photography and taught himself photo development and retouching techniques, which he later taught at the Tokyo Photography Academy.

Gen grew up in a home full of photographic equipment with a darkroom. As Masayoshi would work on retouching photographs using cutting-edge techniques, he forced Gen to help. He would have to hand pump the pressure for the air-brushing that his father would do, and he hated it.

Other members included Hiromu Hara, Hikaru Yamanouchi, Koji Nishikigori, Tomizo Yoshikawa, and critics such as Takoho Tagaki, Nyozenkan Hasegawa, and Muneyoshi Yanagi.

At these meetings, 20 or so photographers would come together and share photos. The participants would often have intense debates about the modernity of their photographs. As the youngest regular member of the group, the lively egalitarian environment of open discussions heavily influenced him. There was an incident that was indicative of that egalitarian spirit. A photo of a puppet lying on a table that Otsuka took sparked a fierce debate between Kimura Ihee and Nobuo Ina. Ihee said that the photograph was blurry and reprimanded Otsuka for presenting such a photo to the group. Ina defended Otsuka's photo saying that the blurriness was the photograph's tone. The debate did not abate until days later, and Kimura apologized to Otsuka's father, Masayoshi, for criticizing Otsuka's photograph.

Otsuka said about these meetings: “Everyone was in earnest, and said exactly what they felt. Seniority counted for nothing. At that time, a student like myself would normally have been expected to remain silent in such company, but no one there ignored me, and I could speak out whenever I wanted to. There was never any master/pupil kind of atmosphere, no condescension – which is how it should be, since a good photo is a good photo no matter who took it.” His reputation only grew as he became the chief administrator of the All Japan Association of Photographic Societies, which was the largest organization for amateur photographers in 1958, and participated as a judge in various photography competitions.

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, United States

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan