Katsuji Fukuda

Who was Katsuji Fukuda?

Katsuji Fukuda was a Japanese photographer known for his photographs of still lifes and nudes, and also a writer of practical books about photography.

Fukuda was born on 11 January 1899 in Nakanoseki, Yamaguchi. He moved to Tokyo in 1920, and worked at Takachiho Seisakujo, where he worked making thermometers and developed an interest in photography, buying a Vest Pocket Kodak. The 1923 Kantō earthquake impelled him to leave the company and move to Kansai.

Fukuda ran a photographic studio in Sakai and Osaka, but this failed. He then worked as an editorial assistant on Hakuyō Fuchikami's periodical Hakuyō. A photograph he took in 1925, shown in an exhibition at Daimaru department store and elsewhere, won the Ilford Diamond Prize the following year. Fukuda then worked as a commercial photographer in Sakai and Hiroshima.

Fukuda moved back to Tokyo in 1933, where, influenced by Modernist trends from Europe, he pursued a successful career as an advertising photographer.