The first monograph dedicated to the work of Yasuzo Nojima (1889-1964), one of the most important figures of early Japanese photography, hailed as the Japanese Stieglitz when his first retrospective was held in the United States in the 1970s. Born in the Meiji era, he was one of the pioneers who began photographic work in the early twentieth century and in the early Showa years moved away from the pictorial style towards photography as an independent art, strongly influencing the development of modern 'new photography'. The volume, published for the 120th anniversary of his birth, includes faithful reproductions of his gum, bromoil and gelatin silver prints, spanning 1910 to 1949: early landscapes, male figures in gum prints, women's portraits and the then rare nudes in bromoil, groups of female portraits in silver gelatin and introspective studio work. It covers 119 pictures, about half of the surviving vintage prints, and advanced printing reproduces the colour, tone and texture of classical processes that were hard to print. In 1932 Nojima also co-founded the legendary magazine Koga, which had a profound influence on the course of photography in Japan, and he was among the first to see the possibilities of photography as a printed art. An essential book for anyone with an interest in the history of Japanese photography; Nobuyoshi Araki, who fell for Nojima's work in the 1960s, even took a pen name derived from the names of Nojima and his father.