Omoide | Memories: Photographs of Japan from the QVMAG Collection

Felice BEATO, Senior Official with his Wife about 1870, albumen silver photograph, hand tinted, Gift of Charles Smith, 2004. QVM:2004:P:0025

Felice Beato, Senior Official with his Wife, about 1870, albumen silver photograph, hand tinted, Gift of Charles Smith, 2004. QVM:2004:P:0025.

Captured by travellers, collected in Tasmania and preserved at QVMAG, these photographs offer glimpses of Japan across generations.

From the bustling streets of Meiji-era Japan to the landscapes and everyday scenes encountered by travellers in the 20th century, Omoide brings together photographs from the QVMAG Collection that capture changing views of Japan across more than a century.

Omoide translates as ‘memory’ or ‘reminiscence’ — a fitting title for an exhibition that explores not only what these photographs show, but also the ways Japan was experienced, remembered and represented by visitors from overseas.

Photographs of Japan have been part of the QVMAG Collection since before the Museum was formally established. This exhibition includes photographs donated by Charles Smith, whose collection of Japanese photographs was previously explored in the 2005 QVMAG exhibition Meiji Memories. The exhibition also includes photographs donated by Francis Jackson, who worked in Japan in the early 1880s; Lady Ramsay, who visited Japan in 1911; and HB ‘Bert’ Davies, who travelled there in the 1960s and 1970s.

Many of the earlier photographs in the QVMAG Collection reflect the style known as Yokohama Shashin (Yokohama photographs). Produced by Japanese and commercial photographers in Yokohama from the 1860s to the early 1900s, the style was also adopted by studios in cities including Nagasaki, Kobe and Hakodate.

These photographs combine European photographic conventions and techniques with elements of Japanese artistic traditions, particularly the visual language of ukiyo-e prints. Through their carefully composed subjects, distinctive colouring and detailed scenes, Yokohama Shashin photographs became an important way that Meiji-era Japan and its people were represented to audiences around the world.

Bringing together photographs spanning more than a century, Omoide invites visitors to consider the ways Japan has been photographed, remembered and represented by those who travelled there.

COMING SOON

Art Gallery at Royal Park | 2 Wellington Street, Launceston

19 December 2026 – 30 May 2027

An old photograph showing Japanese boys playing a game to get a captive

Lady Ella Ramsay, 339. Boys, plahing [sic] a game to get a captive, 1911, albumen silver photograph, hand tinted. From the Estate of Lady Ramsay presented by her daughter Nell Turnbull, 2004. CHS109 5/1.

The artists of Omoide

Untangling who took the photograph and who published it can be quite difficult. Photographic practices and studios were often sold or taken over by individuals who then reprinted the item.

Many of the early photographs in QVMAG's collection were produced by two European photographers who travelled throughout Japan and sold a range of photographs, carte-visites and albums to the European tourist market. More recently, comparisons with photographs held in other institutional collections have helped identify early Japanese photographers as the original creators of some of these works. This distinction is important: the person who originally photographed a scene may not have been the person who produced the physical print held in the QVMAG Collection.

The following are identified artists featured in Omoide:

  • 日下部 金兵衛 KUSAKABE Kimbei (1841–1932 or 1934) 
  • 小川一眞 OGAWA Kazumasa (1860–1929)
  • 玉村康三郎 TAMAMURA Kozaburo (1856–about 1923)
  • 内田九一 UCHIDA Kuichi (1844–1875)
  • Felice BEATO (about 1832–1909)
  • Adolfo FARSARI (1841–1898)
  • Baron Raimund von STILLFRIED (1839–1911)
  • Lady Ella E. P. RAMSAY (1882–1978)
  • Francis Jackson
  • Charles Smith
  • HB 'Bert' Davies
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