Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna discusses his love of Japan, and the stories behind three of his most celebrated works made between 2002 and 2004...

In the third of a series of four articles tracing the career of Michael Kenna, Michael discusses the work of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), one of the most original, accomplished, influential and beloved figures in the history of photography.

In the fourth and final article in a series tracing the career of Michael Kenna, Michael discusses the influence of Czech photographer Josef Sudek, dubbed the ‘Poet of Prague’, who was best known for his lyrical and poetic black-and-white images of Prague, and intimate still life’s taken in and around his studio.

In the second of four articles tracing the career of Michael Kenna, Michael discusses the influence of the Hungarian-French photographer Gyula Halász (1899-1984) or Brassaï  (the pseudonym by which he has become much better known)

In the first of four articles tracing the career of Michael Kenna we hear Michael reflect on the work of Italian photographer Mario Giacomelli (1925-2000), whose work is widely regarded as some of the most original photography of the twentieth century.

There can be doubt that Florence is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities on the face of the earth. I have had the good fortune to have made sporadic visits there since the seventies.

Projects sometimes develop without prior research or specific intentions. Curiosity can lead to a keen interest, which may in turn transform into an avid infatuation. Such was the case with a series of photographs I made in England between 1983 and 1986, of which Deckchairs, Bournemouth, Dorset 1983 is included.

Michael Kenna’s prints have a distinguished provenance. Since the start of his career in the 1970s Michael Kenna has worked solely with film, and he makes every silver gelatin print himself personally, in his darkroom at his home studio in Seattle, USA.

Michael Kenna has travelled the world to create his distinct black and white images of unpopulated landscapes. It was in the mid-1980s that Kenna first began to visit Japan and became influenced by an Asian sense of aesthetics.