- 113
Harry K. Shigeta 1887-1963
Description
- Harry K. Shigeta
- selected images
Provenance
The photographer to Dr. Max Thorek
Gift of Dr. Max Thorek, December 1935
Exhibited
These prints of 'Nude on Beach' and 'Below Zero':
Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Imagination to Image, April - September 1999; and traveling thereafter to The Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, September - December 2000; and The Montclair, New Jersey, Art Museum, January - April 2001
Catalogue Note
Born in Japan, Harry Shigeta was sixteen when he came to the United States, settling first in Seattle, where he took art classes and bought his first camera. He later worked in portrait studios in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Chicago, where he moved in 1924. As a commercial photographer, he initially concentrated on portraiture, but was influenced by the work of Moholy-Nagy, who was at Chicago's Institute of Design. His subsequent work is strikingly different--more modern, dynamic, and industrial in feeling. In 1930, Shigeta and George Wright opened Shigeta-Wright Studio, which specialized in innovative advertising photography.
Shigeta likely became acquainted with Dr. Max Thorek, who donated these photographs to the Museum, through their membership in the Fort Dearborn Camera Club (Christian A. Peterson, After the Photo-Secession, pp. 204-05).