Ravens

Ravens is Masahisa Fukase's series of photographs of crows over the coastal landscapes of Hokkaido, made between 1975 and 1986 and first published as a book in 1986.

MACK issued this bilingual facsimile of the first edition in 2017. The two later editions of the original were short print runs that sold out at once. This edition adds a new essay by Tomo Kosuga, founder of the Masahisa Fukase Archives, which places the series in Fukase's life and work and is illustrated with photographs and drawings found recently. The publisher connects the work to the aftermath of a divorce and a train journey to his hometown, and notes that it has been read as an allegory of postwar Japan. The book is a debossed linen hardback in a silkscreened slipcase, 26.3 by 26.3 cm, 148 pages, with 80 tritone plates and 13 color plates.

Fukase was born in Hokkaido in 1934 and died in 2012. He graduated from the photography department of the Nihon University College of Art in 1956 and became a freelance photographer in 1968. His other major books include Yugi (Chuokoron-sha, 1971) and Yohko (Asahi Sonorama, 1978). He received the Ina Nobuo Award in 1976 for his exhibition Karasu and a special award at the Higashikawa Photography Awards in 1992. In 1992 he fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a brain injury from which he never recovered.