Photograph or Moving Image by JapanesePhotographer/Artist
Inventory Number
85-PHJ-050
Influenced by a childhood friend, Kuwabara Kineo acquired his first camera toward the end of his teenage years, and while helping out at his family’s pawn shop, he took snapshots around the nearby Tokyo districts of Ueno and Asakusa. This shot dates from that period. It captures a moment from daily life, with a general store, pharmacy, and other shops visible on a street, and male students waiting for a streetcar. In the 1930s, as automobiles became more popular, the number of streetcar users in Tokyo declined rapidly, and the age of buses and subways began. After the war, Kuwabara worked as the editor-in-chief at several photography magazines, but the snapshots he had taken during his amateur days before the war were eventually acknowledged as valuable records of changing lifestyles.
(KIMURA Eriko)
Influenced by a childhood friend, Kuwabara Kineo acquired his first camera toward the end of his teenage years, and while helping out at his family’s pawn shop, he took snapshots around the nearby Tokyo districts of Ueno and Asakusa. This shot dates from that period. It captures a moment from daily life, with a general store, pharmacy, and other shops visible on a street, and male students waiting for a streetcar. In the 1930s, as automobiles became more popular, the number of streetcar users in Tokyo declined rapidly, and the age of buses and subways began. After the war, Kuwabara worked as the editor-in-chief at several photography magazines, but the snapshots he had taken during his amateur days before the war were eventually acknowledged as valuable records of changing lifestyles.
(KIMURA Eriko)