"I encountered Thoreau’s Walden in 1985 when I was a commercial photographer. I was inspired the by the freedom of the spirit and pursued fine art photography." - Koichiro Kurita
Kurita’s current project, Beyond Spheres (2010 -2017) is a photographic art project that is inspired by his two mentors and predecessors, William Henry Fox Talbot and Henry David Thoreau. This project is based in homage to Talbot’s invention of photography and a long journey inspiration from Thoreau. “What if Thoreau had been a photographer? ” Through the photography, Kurita explores visual journey to understand Thoreau’s perceptions and philosophy with the idea of harmonious relationship between man and nature. Employing with calotype (Talbotype paper negative process), invented in1841 by Talbot, photography pioneer in England and Thoreau’s contemporaries, Kurita creates salted paper prints and albumen prints on hand coated gampi paper.
Koichiro Kurita's works have been exhibited internationally and collected by numerous museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the George Eastman Museum, the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, the Biblioteque Nationale de France, Paris, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum and many others. Public Collection
Selected Collections
Museum of fine Arts Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.
The National Museum of Modern Arts, Tokyo Japan.
Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas.
Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, Los Angeles, California.
Toledo Museum of Arts, Toledo Ohio.
Baltimore Museum of Arts, Baltimore, MD
International Museum of Photography Gorge Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
Princeton University Museum of Art, Princeton, New.Jarsey.
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California.
Brooklyn Museum of Arts, New York, New York.
Santa Barbara Museum of Arts, Santa Barbara,.Carlifornia.
Chrysler Art Museum, Norfolk, Viarginia.
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum, Providence, Lhod Island.
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York.
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Meine.
Maison de Europienne de la Photographie, Paris France.
Biblioteque Nationale de France, Paris France.
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo Japan.
Tokyo Polytecnics University,Tokyo Japan.
Lasalle National Bank, Chicago, Illinois.
Bergacom, Brussele, Kingdom of Belgium.