Eikoh Hosoe

A signed, first edition copy of Barakei, by Eikoh Hosoe.

• Eikoh Hosoe (Japanese).
• Preface by Mishima Yukio.
• Design by Sugiura Kohei.
• Tokyo: Shueisha, 1963.
• 102 pages.
• Folio.
• Black-and-white photographs by Hosoe printed in sheet-fed gravure.
• Number 1,392 of 1,500 copies.
• Signed by Hosoe and Mishima in black ink on limitation page.
• Accompanied by original plastic dust jacket.
• Housed in the publisher's very good illustrated cardboard box.

Barakei is Hosoe Eikoh's masterpiece, a collaboration with the novelist Mishima Yukio. Mishima saw and was impressed by Hosoe Eikoh's photographs of the Butoh dancer Hijkata Tatsumi and subsequently asked Hosoe to take a publicity portrait for him. The two men were pleased with the results, and for several months, from autumn 1961 until summer 1962, they worked together on the photographs that would form Barakei. These images display a provocative blend of Eastern and Western influences, featuring Mishima in a series of provocative poses exploring themes of birth, death, sex, entrapment and isolation, with references to the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.