Getty Museum

Coney Island

Creator

Photographer · 1889–1953

According to an autobiographical account written in 1945, Yasuo Kuniyoshi arrived in America in 1906 as a teenager from Japan, alone and with no definite plans, "without sentimentalities or tears and with a brave, adventurous spirit." After landing in Washington state, he worked at odd jobs, learned English, and eventually made his way to Los Angeles, where he enrolled in classes and a teacher enc

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Date: 1938
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: American
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Standing on the boardwalk looking down at the people on the beach, Yasuo Kuniyoshi photographed this casual gaggle of lounging beachgoers from behind, obscuring their faces and transforming their cropped and foreshortened bodies into odd shapes in the choppy waves of sand. A foot and pant leg visible on the slats of the pier at upper right, peeking out from under the diagonal blur of the railing that cuts across the image, do not seem logically to be the photographer's, yet they serve to represent his position in the role of observer rather than participant.

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