Akira Sato

Akira Sato, experimented with exploring deep psychology using the techniques of fashion photography. He was noted for his graphic and iconic experimental photographs of women. Sato was born on July 30, 1930 in Tokyo. While a student of economics at Yokohama National University he was an avid reader of LIFE and other photographic and fashion magazines at the American CIE library in Hibiya. He graduated in 1953 and one year later made the move and became a freelance photographer, specialising in fashion. From around 1956 he was caught up with the new trend in photography, the 'image school' and he participated in the seminal 1957 exhibition ‘Junin no me’ (Eyes of Ten), with a key group of other Japanese photographers, who are today considered to be the most influential photographers of the late 20th Century: Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Kikuji Kawada, Shun Kawahara, Akira Tanno, Shomei Tomatsu, Toyoko Tokiway, Masaya Nakamura, Ikko Narahara and Eikoh Hosoe. He subsequently co-founded the famous collective, VIVO. Sato had a series of one-man shows starting in 1961, alongside publications within the camera magazines. His iconic, graphic and experimental photographs of women in a series of images entitled Cyclopean Eye, was published in Camera Mainichi in 1962 and his seminal book, entitled Women (1971), is an enigmatic collection of portraits subtly meshed with fashion.