Kabuki photographs by Umemura Yutaka
Umemura Yutaka (June 15, 1923 – June 5, 2007) was a photographer who was in charge of the gravure pages of the magazine Engekikai. Last December, the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage received negatives and photographs left by the deceased from his widow. Currently we are engaged in sorting out these materials to see how many there are. We hope to complete procedures for their official donation to the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo.
Photographs by the deceased is said to have been first published in Engekikai in 1947, but the oldest negatives and photographs donated date to around 1962. More than 10 cartons of materials were transported to the Institute. They are valuable documents of a photographer who continued to take pictures of the kabuki world in the latter half of the 20th century.