Chirū Yamanaka

Early work and CINÉ

Yamanaka began publishing poetry while still a student in Nagoya and contributed to the coterie magazine Seikishi (青騎士) in the early 1920s.^[4] In 1929 he founded CINÉ, initially a magazine of poetry and film that soon turned increasingly toward Surrealism.^[11]

CINÉ published translations of European Surrealist poetry and writing alongside work by Japanese contributors.^[11] Yamanaka and Tokusaburō Nishiwaki translated passages from Breton and Philippe Soupault's The Magnetic Fields, and Yamanaka later published his own translations of poems by Éluard.^[9]

Contacts with European Surrealists

Yamanaka began corresponding with Éluard in 1933 and subsequently exchanged letters and publications with Breton, Hugnet, Hans Bellmer, and other European Surrealists.^[4][12] Much of this correspondence survives at Keio University; Munro describes Yamanaka's prewar correspondence as the best-preserved body of its kind among Japanese Surrealists.^[12]

In 1936 Yamanaka published L'Échange surréaliste, copies of which circulated among European Surrealists including Éluard and Penrose.^[12] The following year he worked with Takiguchi on Album Surréaliste, a special issue of the art magazine Mizue, and on the Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhinten.^[12]

The exhibition toured Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagoya and presented hundreds of works and reproductions by European Surrealists.^[13] Surrealism Beyond Borders credits Yamanaka and Takiguchi with organizing the exhibition with help from Éluard, Hugnet, Penrose, and other European contacts.^[5]

Yamanaka's activities were also known in Paris. Breton and Éluard's Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme (1938) included him as a Surrealist poet and writer and as a promoter of Surrealism in Japan.^[5][4]

Nagoya avant-garde circles

In November 1937, Yamanaka and the painter Yoshio Shimozato helped found the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club, which brought together poets, painters, and photographers.^[6] In 1939, its photography section became independent as the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde.^[7] Yamanaka helped form the group with Minoru Sakata, Shimozato, and Tsugio Tajima.^[8] Poet-photographer Kansuke Yamamoto was also a member.^[8]

The Nagoya City Art Museum describes Yamanaka as a theoretical leader of the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde.^[8] At the group's meetings, he discussed recent developments in Surrealism abroad and showed members publications such as Minotaure and Cahiers d'Art.^[8]

His work in Nagoya was part of his broader efforts to introduce Surrealism to Japan.^[3] The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum describes Yamanaka as having played a central role in this process.^[3]

Yoru no Funsui

In a study of Yamanaka's life and poetry, Yoshiteru Kurosawa suggests that Yamanaka was planning a second poetry collection titled Yoru no Funsui (夜の噴水) in the latter half of the 1930s.^[9] The book was not published at the time; Kurosawa attributes this to the amount of time Yamanaka was devoting to presenting Surrealism through publications and exhibitions.^[9]

In November 1938, the poet and photographer Kansuke Yamamoto founded a Surrealist poetry magazine in Nagoya under the same title, Yoru no Funsui, and Kurosawa describes Yamanaka as fully involved in the magazine.^[9] A chronology published by the Nagoya City Art Museum likewise records Yamanaka and Yamamoto together in connection with the magazine's founding.^[10] Kurosawa notes that no surviving document establishes how the magazine acquired its title.^[9]

During this period, wartime censorship in Japan was becoming increasingly strict.^[14] The magazine drew the attention of the Special Higher Police, and publication was not allowed to continue.^[15] The fourth issue, published in October 1939, was the last.^[14]

In 1963 Yamanaka published his own poetry collection under the same title, Yoru no Funsui, through Presse Bibliomane.^[9][10] The volume contains eighteen four-line poems.^[9]

Postwar work

Yamanaka continued to publish poetry and criticism after the Second World War.^[10] In 1948 he joined Katsue Kitasono and others in publishing CENDRE, and in 1949 he published Shururearisumu shikō josetsu (シュルレアリスム史考序説).^[10]

His postwar poetry collections included Tasogare no hito (黄昏の人, 1956), Yoru no Funsui (1963), and Suna no gakki (砂の楽器, 1967).^[4][9] In his later years he returned to the documentary history of Surrealism, publishing Surréalisme shiryō to kaisō (シュルレアリスム資料と回想) in 1971 and Dada ronkō (ダダ論考) in 1975.^[4][9]

Yamanaka died on 11 September 1977, aged 72.^[1][2]