Shinjuku at Night

Ōtsuji Kiyoji used a technique called shashin-hanga (photo print) to create this image. He used semi-opaque pigment to paint a hand with palm lines on a photographic negative, which he then used to print this photograph. In the 1930s, Ōtsuji encountered works by László Moholy-Nagy and other European avant-garde artists in Japanese periodicals including Photo Times, where he became a regular contributor. Thanks to another contributor, the art critic Takiguchi Shūzō, Ōtsuji’s work was sent to Moholy, who included it in classes and exhibitions at the New Bauhaus (later the Institute of Design) in Chicago.