Kusakabe Kimbei

In this Japanese name, the surname is Kusakabe.

Kusakabe Kimbei (日下部 金兵衛; 1841–1934) was a Japanese photographer. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name.^[3]: 8

Kusakabe Kimbei
日下部金兵衛
Born	November 24, 1841[1] or November 27, 1841[2] Kōfu, Kai Province, Japan[1]
Died	April 19, 1932[1] or April 19, 1934[2]
Occupation	photographer

Career

Kusakabe Kimbei worked with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried as a photographic colourist and assistant. In 1881, Kimbei opened his own workshop in Yokohama, in the Benten-dōri quarter.^[3] From 1889, the studio operated in the Honmachi quarter.^[4]

By 1893, his was one of the leading Japanese studios supplying art to Western customers.^[5] Many of the photographs in the studio's catalogue featured depictions of Japanese women, which were popular with tourists of the time.^[5]: 10 Kimbei preferred to portray female subjects in a traditional bijinga style, and hired geisha to pose for the photographs.^[6] Many of his albums are mounted in accordion fashion.^[7][8]

Around 1885, Kimbei acquired the negatives of Felice Beato and of Stillfried, as well as those of Uchida Kuichi.^[4] Kusakabe also acquired some of Ueno Hikoma's negatives of Nagasaki.

Kimbei retired as a photographer in 1914.^[9]

Gallery

• 
  Country children
• 
  Kago Travelling Chair
• 
  Wringing the Tealeaves on the Furnace
• 
  Writing Letter (also known as Letter Writer)
• 
  Yumoto lake at Nikkō, Tochigi (日光市), Japan
• 
  Buddha statue at Hakone, Japan
• 
  Bell of Daibutsu in Kyoto
• 
  Japanese woman in jinrikisha
• 
  View of Mount Fuji. Hand-coloured albumen silver print, 1880.
• 
  Japanese Lantern Makers