Nobuyoshi Araki is a Tokyo-based photographer, born in 1940 in Tokyo.
Araki completed his studies at Chiba University’s Department of Photography, Printing and Engineering with a focus on the study of film and photography. His photographic project “Satchin” earned him the prestigious Taiyo Award in 1964, shortly after he had joined the advertising agency Dentsu, where he worked until 1972.
At Dentsu he met his wife Yoko, to whom he paid homage in Sentimental Journey, a photographic record of their honeymoon published in 1971. Eros and thanatos (sex and death) has been a central theme in Araki’s work; an abiding fascination with female genitalia and women’s bodies in Japanese bondage, flowers, food, his cat, faces and Tokyo street scenes.
His solo exhibitions took place in the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM, The Barbican Art Gallery, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Ikon Gallery, in Birmingham, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Tokyo, Wiener Secession in Vienna, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Forum Stadtpark in Graz.
Araki is a recipient of the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Arts (2008) and the 54th Mainichi Art Award (2012).