Shoji Ueda was a sedentary adventurer, ceaselessly exploring the dunes that sculpted the landscape throughout the seasons. His keen eye was drawn to everything around him: a map of the world, a wheat field caressed by the wind, a boy in roller skates, the graceful figure of his wife, Norie… When Ueda wasn’t out wandering, he composed still lives of seasonal fruit and incongruous objects, small treasures found here and there.
Biography
Shoji Ueda was born in 1913 in the town Sakaiminato, Japan. He gained his interest in photography after attending a photography class at his high school, which led him to studying photography at the Oriental School of Photography in 1931. He graduated at the age of 19 and returned to his home village where he set up his own photo studio. During the same period, he joined the Japan Photography Association and quickly established a strong reputation due to many of his photos being published in magazines and in displays.
Throughout his life, he has held many exhibitions, but notably, he managed to hold major exhibitions in every decade of his life after graduating from the Oriental School of Photography. In 1995, the Shoji Ueda Museum of Photography was founded in Houki-cho and in 1996, he was awarded the Cheavlier des Arts et des Lettres prize by the French Government and finally in 1998, his home state of Tottori awarded him their first Prefectural Citizen Achievement award.