Photographic Memories

This display highlights the museum’s holdings of historical photographs. The images on view reflect lives people led in Asia, record the travels people took there – or would like to have taken. Among the well-known photographers represented are the Englishman Charles Shepherd, the Indian Lala Dee... Read more

This display highlights the museum’s holdings of historical photographs. The images on view reflect lives people led in Asia, record the travels people took there – or would like to have taken. Among the well-known photographers represented are the Englishman Charles Shepherd, the Indian Lala Deen Dayal, and the Japanese Tamamura Kozaburo.

The subjects range from formal portraits of princes to picturesque views of palaces and temples to depictions of dancers and tightrope walkers in mid-performance. The majority of the 36 works on view document life in colonial India. The remaining works feature China and Japan as their subjects. The photographs date mostly from 1850–1910, with some dating as recently as the 1940’s. Photographic Memories is housed in the intimate Tateuchi Thematic Gallery located on the second floor of the museum between the Korean and Japanese galleries.