Lot 113
  • 113

Harry K. Shigeta 1887-1963

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Description

  • Harry K. Shigeta
  • selected images
a group of 3 photographs, comprising 'Summer,' 'Below Zero,' and Nude on Beach, each signed by the photographer in ink and the first and second with his red monogram stamp on the image, the first double-mounted and titled in an unidentified hand in pencil on the mount, the last accompanied by the original mount, the first and last with the Museum's collection stamp, label, and accession numbers in an unidentified hand in red crayon on the reverse, matted, circa 1928 (3)

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).