From September 30, 2026, to January 31, 2027, the National Library of France presents eighty years of Japanese photography, from 1945 to 2025, at its François-Mitterrand site. Around one hundred artists, from Hiroshi Hamaya to Rinko Kawauchi, are featured, and some fifty rare books accompany the prints.

One enters the National Library of France for its books, and finds one of the world's largest photographic collections. Its Japanese section comprises four thousand prints by two hundred photographers, one of the most important collections in the Western world, and the exhibition Japanese Photographs displays three hundred of these works.

The exhibition unfolds in three distinct sections. First, reality: that of postwar reporters photographing snow-covered villages in the north and the survivors of Hiroshima, then of a generation that transforms the mundane into something strange. Next, theater: bodies directed like actors, a legacy of kabuki and butoh dance. Finally, sensation: veiled landscapes and velvety prints where calligraphy takes precedence over the figure.

In the middle, Paris appears, viewed through the eyes of Japanese who came to study or settle, from the general strike of May '68 to gray rooftops seen from a skylight. All of this is here because the photographers intended it, like Eikō Hosoe, who included works from his studio here as early as 1974. Nearly half of the prints are donations.

Did you know? The Department of Prints and Photography holds over seven million images by ten thousand photographers, from daguerreotypes to Instagram.

Zoom in on…
Tokuko Ushioda, Ice Box 36 A & B, Meguro, Tokyo, 1989. From 1978 to 1985, Tokuko Ushioda photographed the inside of her refrigerator in the twenty-five square meters where she lived with her husband and daughter. Then she moved on to other people. Nothing could be more ordinary, and yet an era is reflected in it.

Toshiko Hashimoto, Sensui, 2018. Toshiko Hashimoto photographs her family in the moment of joy, without ever planning it. His series Ephemeroptera takes its name from the life cycle of the mayfly, an insect that lives for only a day, and its grainy prints give the memory a surface that the eye feels it can touch.

Shōji Ueda, Dune Landscape with My Wife, 1950. In his native dunes, Shōji Ueda arranged his family like a stage director, tiny against the sand. He called this directed photography. His wife poses in the foreground of a dream he crafted.

Yuki Onodera, Portraits of Secondhand Clothes, 1994. Arriving in Paris in 1993, Yuki Onodera visited the installation where Christian Boltanski had piled thousands of used garments, and left with a full bag. She photographed each piece alone, spread out against the sky, after waiting for its owner to vanish.

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BNF, FRANÇOIS-MITTERRAND SITE
From September 30, 2026 to January 31, 2027
East Entrance, rue Émile-Durkheim, 75013 - Metro: Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand (Line 14), RER C
Tue. to Sat. 10am-7pm, Sun. 1pm-7pm, closed Mon. and public holidays
Admission: €15 - Reduced rate: €10 - Free for under 18s