Kiyoshi Nishiyama

Who was Kiyoshi Nishiyama?

Kiyoshi Nishiyama was a versatile Japanese amateur photographer who specialized in landscapes.

Born in Tokyo in 1893 as Kiyonosuke Nishiyama, Nishiyama became interested in photography at 15. He intended to become a professional photographer and learned retouching in a photographic studio at Ryōgoku, but never turned professional, instead in 1921 setting up a photographic supplies shop, Heiwadō, in Nihonbashi, and at about the same time starting up and leading a photographic club, the Pleasant Club, and submitting his photographs to photographic magazines.

In 1922 Nishiyama won the first prize for his submission, taken with a Vest Pocket Kodak, to a competition at the Heiwa Kinen Tōkyō Hakurankai. A year later he lost all his photographs and cameras in the Great Kantō Earthquake, but persevered and held the first exhibition of the Pleasant Club in 1924. Nishiyama was impressed by the "light and its harmony" aesthetic of Shinzō Fukuhara, who invited him to join the Japan Photographic Society; Nishiyama soon thereafter had a solo exhibition at the Shiseido Gallery.