HIROMU KIRA | 'PHIALS'

Photo-Era Magazine, May 1930, frontispiece

Beginning in 1928, Japanese-American Hiromu Kira made several glassware studies, a departure from his previous Pictorialist photography. They were among the 73 photographs he exhibited in more than 260 salons throughout the world between 1928 and 1932 and, no doubt, were a factor in his selection as a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1929. Artfully signed with long tails of graphite extending from the letters – a practice Kira abandoned by the early 1930s –, the photograph offered here represents the ideal early presentation of this image. At the time of this writing only two prints of this image have been located, both in institutional collections: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles.