"Ravens is one of the defining works in the history of photography and a high point in the photobook genre. This accumulation of praise and the passage of time have obscured many of the fascinating details that explain the artist's preoccupation with this motif throughout his work. It was not simply a reflection of the existential anguish and anhedonia he suffered throughout his life, but manifested itself in an artistic self-identification with the raven, ultimately becoming a solitary existence and an artistic practice on the edge of madness. And all this before an untimely accident in 1992, a fall down the stairs of his favourite bar, left him spending the final twenty years before his death with consciousness suspended and in medical isolation. Fukase became the solitary raven frozen by his camera and immortalised on the cover of his most famous book." — Tomo Kosuga, from his essay Gritos de soledad [2017]
Consistently acclaimed as one of the most important photobooks in the history of the medium, Ravens by Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase was first published in 1986, and its two subsequent editions were short print runs that immediately sold out. This bilingual facsimile of the first edition contains a new text by Masahisa Fukase Archives founder Tomo Kosuga. His essay places Ravens within Fukase's wider work and life and is illustrated with numerous recently discovered photographs and drawings.
Fukase's haunting series was made between 1975 and 1986 following a divorce, apparently prompted by a sorrowful train journey to his hometown. Hokkaido's coastal landscapes provide the backdrop for his profoundly dark, impressionistic photographs of ominous flocks of ravens. The work has been interpreted as a sinister allegory of postwar Japan.
Masahisa Fukase (b. 1934, Hokkaido; d. 2012) graduated from the Photography Department of Nihon University's College of Art in 1956. He became a freelance photographer in 1968 after working at Nippon Design Center and Kawade Shobo Publishers. His major books include Yugi [Homo Ludence] (Chuokoron-sha, 1971); Yohko (Asahi Sonorama, 1978); and Karasu [Ravens] (Sokyu-sha, 1986). Countless solo exhibitions have been devoted to Fukase's work, and his photographs have appeared in group exhibitions at MoMA, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris; and the V&A, London. Fukase also received numerous awards, including the second Ina Nobuo Award in 1976 for his exhibition "Karasu" and the Special Award at the eighth Higashikawa Photography Awards in 1992. Fukase tragically fell down a staircase in 1992, sustaining a traumatic brain injury from which he never recovered. He died in 2012.
