was a renowned Japanese photographer. She is considered one of Japan's earliest women photographers and is among the few women photographers in Japan who were active both before and after World War II. First trained in Nihonga, she later studied photography in the U.S. under the mentorship of Consuelo Kanaga, and also exposed to the work of Kanaga's contemporaries such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston.
After coming back to Japan in 1929, she established herself as a professional photographer. In 1931 she opened a portrait studio in Osaka, and in 1950 she established the Yamazawa Institute of Photography also in Osaka. In the early half of her career, Yamazawa was engaged in portraiture and commercial photography, having produced work for major Osaka department stores. In 1960 she shifted abstraction away from realism. Her work in this latter half of her career is characterized by her photographing art materials in distortion and reflection. Yamazawa's photographs were unique at the time for their use of vibrant color, which was in stark contrast to black and white photography championed by other Japanese photographers.
Early life and education
Yamazawa was born in Osaka as the third daughter to the owner of the Matsutari and Sada ironworks factory. As a child Yamazawa enjoyed being creative, having described her childhood with fond memories of growing up in factories and playing with building materials. She knew from a young age that she wanted to be an artist; she took painting lessons with the nihonga artist Rogetsu Mori and experimented with box cameras. From 1916 to 1918, Yamazawa attended nihonga classes at the Women's School of Fine Arts in Tokyo (currently Joshibi University of Art and Design) while studying yōga painting and photography on her own.
After graduation Yamazawa returned to Osaka and moved with her family to the countryside. There Yamazawa was continuing to paint on her own and with the help of her friends under the group name Hoshi, she self-published her first book Eiko Gashū (1921). During this time, Yamazawa was increasingly more involved with the Christian church and took English lessons at the Osaka YMCA. Through the support of local YMCA members, she was able to attain enough money to travel to the US at the age of 27.
America (July 1926 – February 1929) In July 1926, Yamazawa travelled to the US where she enrolled in still life classes at the California School of Fine Arts. Yamazawa's father died soon after she arrived and as a result, Yamazawa was forced to seek out part-time work to pay for school tuition and living expenses. Through a serendipitous introduction by a local camera shop owner, Yamazawa began working as an apprentice to Consuelo Kanaga who was then primarily a portrait photographer in San Francisco. In 1927, Kanaga closed her studio to tour Europe and Yamazawa took on work as a photography assistant to an unidentified amateur photographer. After completing her studies at California SFA in December 1927, Yamazawa travelled to Europe in the spring of 1928. When Yamazawa came back to the US, she visited Kanaga in New York City and found a retouching job with Nikolas Murray, a photographer for Harpers Bazaar.
Commercial photography career
Pre-war
Yamazawa returned to Osaka in 1929 and she started to work professionally as a photographer with a graflex camera and other equipment gifted from Kanaga. Yamazawa's embracement of photography was in part motivated by a need to financially support her mother after the death of her father as well as her growing view of photography as an art form, informed by her experiences in the US. n 1931, Yamazawa opened her own photography studio at the Dojima Building in Osaka's business district where she shot mostly portraits. Yamazawa initial portraits were of members of the social club Seikosha, which included Osaka's financial community. She was then invited to move to the Osaka Sogo Department in Shinsaibaishi and relocation in 1935. She become known as a shokugyo-fujin “professional woman” and penned essays in the journal Kagayaku published by Shigure Hasegawa as well as Fujin Gahou. As Yamazawa's reputation grew, she began photographing the artistic community, including playwright Shigure Hasegawa and actress Yasue Yamamoto. Yamazawa often visited workshops Yamamoto participated in as part of the Shin-Tsukiji Theatre Company as well as the workshops Yamamoto held in her Sendagaya home.