Chewing Gum and Chocolate

Author/Artist

Shomei Tomatsu 

Year

2014


Condition

Very Good Plus(VG+)

Size (cm)

30×25×3

About
Shomei Tomatsu, a leading twentieth-century Japanese photographer, created iconic images that captured the essence of postwar Japan. His series, originally titled Occupation, was later renamed Chewing Gum and Chocolate, reflecting the American soldiers' handouts to Japanese children—sweet but nutritionally empty. This work highlights the tension between traditional Japanese culture and the increasing Westernization following the atomic bomb's devastation in Nagasaki. Although many of his most notable images come from this series, they have never before been compiled in a single volume. Tomatsu (1930–2012) was pivotal in the photography agency Vivo, participated in the influential New Japanese Photography exhibition at MoMA in 1974, and received the 1999 Japan Art Grand Prix.