Hiroji kubota biography of martin

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During a visit by Magnum members to Japan in 1960, Kubota came to know René Burri, Burt Glinn, Brian Brake and Elliott Erwitt.

Kubota witnessed the fall of Saigon in 1975, refocusing his attention on Asia. He started out working with some of them as a fixer and translator, even though he refused payment at first. In 1989, Kubota became a full member of Magnum Photos.

It took him several years to get permission to photograph in China.

He became a freelance photographer in 1965, and his first assignment for the UK newspaper The Times was to Jackson Pollock’s grave in East Hampton. The next year he became a Magnum associate.

Kubota witnessed the fall of Saigon in 1975, refocusing his attention on Asia.

Kubota won the Mainichi Art Prize in 1980,[2] and the Annual Award of the Photographic Society of Japan in 1981. "He had no children, so he needed a son, a fairly well-behaved son who could cook for him." Capa, who entertained "big shots" at his Fifth Avenue apartment, helped Hiroji make a few extra dollars by having him cook. He has just completed Japan, a book on his homeland and the country where he continues to be based.

Source: Magnum Photos


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CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/17/2016

Japanese photojournalist Hiroji Kubota's 1963 photograph of activists at the historic March on Washington, DC, where Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his revolutionary "I Have a Dream" speech is reproduced from Aperture's revelatory new 512-page monograph. He would talk government officials into allowing him the time and access he needed to achieve his purpose.

That kind of work led to his meeting other influential photographers who would encourage him, eventually bringing him to New York, where he became a familiar figure at the Magnum offices.

-- By Misha Erwitt

Source: The New York Times


During a visit by Magnum members to Japan in 1961, Hiroji Kubota came to know René Burri, Burt Glinn and Elliott Erwitt. "I was brought up comfortably and didn't need it,"he said. Hiroji was my father's translator when he photographed the captain and crew of the destroyer that famously cut Kennedy's boat in two.

They had met when Hiroji worked as a fixer on one of my father's early trips to Japan, in 1962, to illustrate Robert Donovan's book PT 109, about John F. Kennedy's World War II exploits.

hiroji kubota biography of martin

She is currently scholar-in-residence at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; curator for international programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, Massachusetts; and artistic director of Fotofestiwal Lódz in Poland. In 1968, Kubota returned to live in Japan, where his work was recognized with a Publishing Culture Award from Kodansha in 1970.

Hiroji Kubota


Hiroji Kubota (born 2 August 1939) is a Japanese photographer, a member of Magnum Photoswho has specialized in photographing the far east. Hiroji showed similar ingenuity when he spent the better part of a year photographing in Chicago, where he ran an ad hoc Japanese catering business every other weekend to help pay the bills.