Yumehara Hokume

We clipped this amazing photo from the New Yorker a few years ago and have had it on our wall ever since. It was taken by Yumahara Hokume in the early thirties (googling Hokume curiously turned up NOTHING, so he/she remains a mystery). The woman in the photo reminds us a little of the picture of Le Corbusier painting in the nude in that they both, somehow, seem to be involved in to be a deeply creative activity, sans clothes. Yet, Hokume’s nude seems only to be thinking, hanging out, mulling, resting… maybe even asleep: doing ‘nothing’, yet doing a great deal of living.

Related post: stripping things to their essence (le corbusier)

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3 replies on “doing ‘nothing’ can be doing a lot

  1. Been following your blog for a while but re-stumbled across this post recently. Even though this is a post on nothing, I have to admit that things that fail the “google test” get under my skin, so I had to check out the photographer for myself. I think Yumehara Hokume is an alternate spelling/way of writing Hokume Umehara (1901-1946). He was a writer and publisher of “abnormal tales.” His bio, as written on a Japanese art gallery site, is here:
    http://sakura-do.com/galleries_modernism/details_modernism/details_AP_145.html

  2. I can’t thank you enough for persisting and finding this bit of info. I’ve wondered about this amazing artist for years and you have given us an entryway IN to his work. Thank you!

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