ARTISTS

Minoru HIRATA

Minoru Hirata, "Hi Red Center’s Cleaning Event (officially known as Be Clean! and Campaign to Promote Cleanliness and Order in the Metropolitan Area)", 1964, gelatin silver print © HM Archive

Minoru Hirata was born in Tokyo in 1930 and passed away in 2018. He worked as a freelance photojournalist and he has documented the avant-garde activities of such important artists in 1960’s as Yoko Ono, Genpei Akasegawa, Ushio Shinohara, Hi Red Center, and Zero Dimension. His lifelong themes also include Okinawa and sky sports, which were presented in various exhibitions such as “Fly, Icaros, Fly” at the Nikon Salon (1975), “Okinawa Era 1968-1974: Before the Return, After the Return, Before the Ocean Expo” at the Konica Plaza Gallery (2000) in Tokyo. His work has frequently been shown in the exhibitions of postwar Japanese art, including “Tokyo 1955– 1970” at MOMA in New York (2012). Hirata also participated in Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2011. He is a member of the Japan Professional Photographers Society, the Japan Photographic Copyright Association and the APG-Japan.