Embrace
Eikoh Hosoe Solo Exhibition
February 6 (Fri) – March 14 (Sat), 2026
Venue: YOD Gallery (Tennoz, Tokyo)

2F TERRADA ART COMPLEXⅡ 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku,Tokyo
From this exhibition onward, the gallery has relocated to the 2nd floor of the same building.

Opening hours: 12:00-19:00

Closing date: Mondays & Tuesdays

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YOD Gallery (Tennoz, Tokyo) is pleased to present Embrace, a solo exhibition by Eikoh Hosoe (1933–2024).

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Hosoe was born in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, and raised in Tokyo. At the age of seventeen, he received the Grand Prize in the student category of the Fujifilm-sponsored Fuji Photo Contest, an experience that led him to pursue a career in photography. After enrolling in Tokyo College of Photography (now Tokyo Polytechnic University) in 1952, he developed close ties with Ei-Q, founder of the Democratic Artists Association, inheriting a spirit of experimentation that challenged established conventions. Following his graduation, Hosoe began working as a freelance photographer.

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Amid the dominance of postwar realist photography and the rapid economic growth of Japan, which demanded new forms of photographic expression, Hosoe co-founded the photographers’ self-agency VIVO in 1959 together with Kikuji Kawada, Akira Sato, Akira Tanno, Shomei Tomatsu, and Ikko Narahara. Through this collective, he pursued a more personal and artistic mode of expression.

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In 1960, Hosoe published Man and Woman, featuring the butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, for which he received the New Artist Award from the Japan Photographic Critics Association. In 1963, he photographed the nude body of Yukio Mishima in the series Ordeal by Roses, a work that caused a major sensation both in Japan and internationally for its unprecedented and masochistic imagery, and earned him the Association’s Artist Award. He went on to create numerous landmark works, including Kamaitachi, photographed in rural Akita with Hijikata as his model, continually opening new paths in the history of postwar Japanese photography.

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Alongside his artistic practice, Hosoe contributed significantly to the development of photographic culture by teaching at his alma mater, Tokyo Polytechnic University, and conducting workshops internationally. His achievements were recognized with numerous honors, including the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts (1970), the Medal with Purple Ribbon (1998), the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette (2007), and his designation as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2010. Through these accomplishments, Hosoe played a leading role in shaping the field of Japanese photography.

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This exhibition focuses on Embrace, one of Hosoe’s representative series, produced from the late 1960s to around 1970. Through the physical contact and intertwining of bodies, these photographs capture moments in which vital impulse and existential tension converge, and the boundaries between bodies dissolve. Hosoe’s long-standing exploration of the body transcends mere figuration; through the vivid contrasts and sculptural forms of gelatin silver prints, he articulates a coexistence of eros and unease generated by bodily proximity.

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The exhibition presents 27 vintage prints, offering a compelling aesthetic vision that visualizes the relationships between body and body, existence and existence, through the medium of photography. Visitors are invited to encounter the profound inquiry into corporeal expression and the photographic medium that lies at the core of Hosoe’s work.