Minoru Hirata was born 1930 in Tokyo and passed away in 2018. After working as a stenographer in the Diet, he independently began studying photography. In 1953, he debuted as a photographer with the publication of his works in Asahi Camera Extra Edition International Photography Salon and began working as a freelance photojournalist. Between the 1950s and 1970s, he documented Tokyo and its inhabitants, landscapes, and social realities as they moved from the postwar period to the era of rapid economic growth. In the 1960s, his photographs, which captured avant-garde artists such as Yoko Ono, Genpei Akasegawa, Ushio Shinohara, Hi Red Center, and Zero Jigen, were widely published in weekly magazines. Hirata’s consistent approach and subjective shooting of subjects and events also resulted other works such as the Okinawa series, shot between the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his journalistic photographs of sky sports.
His recent group exhibitions include “Curator’s Series #”11. Institute of Asian Performance Art,” David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2018); “Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945–1965,” the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2016); “Japanorama. New vision on art since 1970,” the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2017); “1968: Art in the Turbulent Age, ” the Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba; traveled to: the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Riverwalk Gallery, Fukuoka; the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka (2018-2019); “Awakenings: Art in Society in Asia 1960s-1990s,” The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2018). His works are included in the public collections of the Tate Modern; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Tokyo Station Gallery.
