was a renowned Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese amateur photographer, particularly in the 1930s.

was born in Kumagaya

Kumagaya, Saitama

is a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan.As of 2010, the city has an estimated population of 203,089 . The total area is 159.88 km². The city is one of the biggest in northern Saitama Prefecture. It is the administrative, business and commercial centre in northern Saitama Prefecture. Eight...

, Saitama

Saitama Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Saitama.This prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, and most of Saitama's cities can be described as suburbs of Tokyo, to which a large amount of residents commute each day.- History...

 on 1 November 1911. From the age of thirteen Satō had a Thornton

Thornton-Pickard

Thornton-Pickard was a famous British camera manufacturer established in 1888. The company was based in Altrincham, near Manchester and was an early pioneer in the development of the camera industry.-Brief history of the company:...

 reflex camera; on his graduation from school he took photographs in his free time from his work in a bicycle wholesaler. He was given the nom de guerre when young.

From 1931 his photographs appeared in Camera

Camera (Japanese magazine)

, or Ars Camera , Arusu Kamera), is one of the older and longer running of Japanese camera magazines. It was published by the company Ars.The first issue of Ars Camera is dated April 1921: predating Asahi Camera by five years...

and Shashin Geppō, and from 1933 in Shashin Salon. Satō's works were selected for the Golden Gate International Exposition

Golden Gate International Exposition

The Golden Gate International Exposition , held at San Francisco, California's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair that celebrated, among other things, the city's two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937...

 in 1940.

After the war, Satō changed the characters

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 for Kōji from to . An energetic and widely exhibited portraitist before and during the war, Satō turned his camera to his parents and his children after the war.

Satō died of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 on 30 May 1955.

Some of Satō's photographs are in the permanent collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

The is an art museum focused on photography. The museum was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is located in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo...

, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and Shimane Art Museum.

Published photographs

• Nihon kindai shashin no seiritsu to tenkai / The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan. Tokyo: Tokyo Museum of Photography, 1995. Plate 122: "Man in black cape" , 1937.
• Satō Kōji no shashin / The Photographs of Koji Sato. N.p.: Kenji Satō, 2001. Captions and text in Japanese and English.