Photo Dessin (Photo Drawing)

Trained as a painter, Ei-Q coined the term photo dessin (or photo design) to describe the camera-less images that he made with a small flashlight, paper cutouts, and found material. He participated in a lively dialogue between Japanese artists during the 1920s and ’30s that included discussions of the Bauhaus; he and his peers paid substantial attention to László Moholy-Nagy’s experiments with darkroom manipulation. Ei-Q enjoyed critical acclaim in Japan until the late 1930s, when the government began using photography as a propaganda tool in earnest. Nationalist sentiment dampened enthusiasm for Ei-Q and other artists working in a style perceived as foreign.