In 1972 he obtained a B.F.A. Polar Bear. Diorama When I first arrived in New York in 1974, I visited many of the city's tourist sites, one of which was the the American Museum of Natural History. "I made a curious discovery," he later recalled. Hiroshi Sugimoto, Earliest Human Relatives, 1994.Courtesy of Mai 36 Galerie. Surrounded by the museum's elaborate, naturalistic dioramas, Sugimoto realized that the scenes jumped to life when looked at with one eye closed. Hiroshi Sugimoto, Earliest Human Relatives, 1994.Courtesy of Mai 36 Galerie. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Dioramas , Damiani and Matsumoto Editions, 2014. All works / Photography. The last time was in 2012, when he photographed the Olympic Forest diorama in the Hall of North American Forests. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Seascapes Since 1980, Hiroshi Sugimoto has traveled around the world—from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea—to photograph the tranquil horizon line where the sea meets the sky. When Sugimoto first arrived in New York in 1974, he was fascinated by the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. Combining poetic imagination and noble elegance, this body of work presents life-size black-and-white portraits of historical figures--Henry VIII, each of his six wives and Oscar Wilde, among others--photographed in wax museums and dramatically lit so as to create haunting images. Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) began his four-decade-long series Dioramas in 1974, inspired by a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Polar Bear is amongst the earliest images in Sugimoto's Dioramas series (1976 - 2012), most of which were taken at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Dioramas narrates a story of the cycle of life, death and rebirth, from prehistoric aquatic life to the propagation of reptile and animal life to homo sapiens’ destruction of the planet—and then to a renewal of the earth, where flora and fauna flourish without man. Hiroshi Sugimoto here turns to the wax figures he first explored in his Dioramas series. All works / Photography. Sugimoto received a B.A. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Dioramas Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto has visited the Museum four times in the past four decades to shoot his "Dioramas" series, which focuses on habitat displays to explore the distinction between the real and the fictive. Hiroshi Sugimoto is a contemporary Japanese photographer whose esoteric practice explores memory and time. Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese photographer whose realistic images of intangible or impossible phenomena challenged the understanding of photography as an “objective” art form. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Dioramas
This exhibition brings together three series by the artist—habitat dioramas, wax portraits, and early photographic negatives—that present objects of historical and cultural significance from various museum collections. See available photographs, prints and multiples, and sculpture for sale and learn about the artist.
Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) began his four-decade-long series Dioramas in 1974, inspired by a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.