新山清さんと私
My Memories of Mr. Kiyoshi Niiyama

新山清さんと私　　梶原高男

私が新山さんと知り合ったのは、新山さんが旭光学に入社して東京サービスセンターの所長になった1958年頃である。
当時私は大学を卒業してフリーの写真家となったばかりで、使用カメラはアサヒペンタックスだった。それ以来、ペンタックスユーザーとして、またよき先輩としてたいへんお世話になり1969年、精神異常者の兇刀に倒れて急逝されるまで約10年間親しくおつきあいをさせていただいた。
今回ご子息のコスモスインターナショナル社長の新山洋一さんが父、清さんの写真作品集を上梓するにあたって序文をということになり筆をとったが、掲載作品がパーレット同人会時代を中心としたものだそうで、1932年生まれの私は戦前の1936年頃の日本の写真界については歴史的な知識としてしか知らないので、よい文章が書けるかどうかいささか心配であった。
パーレットというのは、1910年頃から当時、小西六（現在のコニカミノルタ）が発売していた日本最初のベストセラーカメラで、これを愛用する写真家も多く、ユーザー組織としてパーレット同人会というクラブがあった。そのメンバーは池谷慶太郎、秋山青磁（写真家・秋山亮二氏の父上）、濱谷浩などそうそうたる顔ぶれで、新山清さんは1911年に同会に入会する。話は変わるが、パーレットについては私にも思い出があり、私の父が写真好きでやはりパーレットの愛用者で、柿山青磁さんに写真を教わっていて、子供の頃の私をよくモデルにして作品を写していた。
また終戦後の私が中学生の頃、写真を始めるにあたってこのパーレットをもらい愛用したのもなつかしい思い出である。
ところでパーレット時代の新山清さんの作品だが、テーマは静物や風景が多く、それもシンプルな構図で、黒と白の明暗が効果的な、かなりモダーンな表現が目立つ。当時の白黒フィルムや印画紙でこれだけの調子を出すのはかなりむずかしく、おそらく暗室で入念な焼き込みや覆い焼きをしていたものと思われる。この作風はその後の造形的な木や石をテーマとした作品に発展していくのだが、新山清さんの遺作集「木石の詩」の中で濱谷浩さんがこの点について適確な指摘をしているので、これを引用してこの問題のしめくくりとしたい。
.新山さんの遺作展「木石の詩」を見、その後も遺作集の編集進行中に数々の未知の写真に接して私は、彼の写真にある種の運命的なものを感じた。
彼は好んで木や石を撮影した。枯れた木や風化した石などの作品が多い。彼そうした素材そのものに魅せられていたのか、または造形性追求の方法として素材を選んだのか、あるいはその両方が交わりあったものか、そのところは私には不明であるけれど、いずれにしてもそれらの写真が非常に日本的な表現になっているのが特徴であった。
エドワード・ウエストンの作品にも枯れ木や石の作品が多い。それは物そのものが即物的に描写されていて偉大な一つの世界を築きあげている。
新山さんの作品はそれと対象的に、造形的ではあるけれど多分に感情移入の感が強い。どちらがよくてどちらが悪いということではなく、そこに新山さんの特徴があった。それは多分に日本的であって、それをさらに深くつきつめていくとどういうことになるのか、新山さんに見せて貰いたかった。.
ところで最近、私はご子息の新山洋一さんが運営するコスモスギャラリーで、毎年のようにデジタルで写真展を開催してるが、これにもある種の運命的な出会いが感じられる。父親似で、写真好きで、世話好きな洋一さんを見ていると、ありし日の清さんの笑顔が目に浮かぶのである。

My Memories of Mr. Kiyoshi Niiyama

Takao Kajiwara

　My first encounter with Mr. Kiyoshi Niiyama was around 1958, soon after he had joined Asahi Optical Co., Ltd., assuming the post of Director of the Tokyo Service Center.
I myself had just started to work as a free-lance photographer upon graduating from university, and the camera I was using was Asahi Pentax. Mr. Niiyama treated me ever so well as a fellow Pentax user and also as my senior, and I was closely acquainted with him during the span of approximately ten years until 1969 when he died a sudden death, falling victim to the knife of a mentally disordered person.
I am more than honoured by the request addressed to me on this occasion by his son Mr. Yoichi Niiyama, President of Cosmos International Inc., to write the foreword for this collection of photographic works by his father Kiyoshi. However, when I learned that the majority of the works to be contained in this collection belong to the period corresponding to the Pearlette Dōjinkai (Pearlette Camera Coterie), I must admit that I was rather perplexed and uncertain whether I would be able to serve my purpose for, being born in 1932, I only have historical knowledge on the world of photography around 1936 in pre-war Japan.
The Pearlette, launched in 1925 by Konishiroku (predecessor of Konica Minolta), was the first best-selling camera in Japan, and many photographers were very fond of taking pictures with this camera, eventually forming a users' society known as the Pearlette Camera Coterie.
This association consisted of eminent members including Keitaro Iketani, Seiji Akiyama (who is the father of photographer Ryoji Akiyama), and Hiroshi Hamaya, and it was in 1936 that Mr. Kiyoshi Niiyama joined the coterie. Incidentally, I, too, have personal memories of the Pearlette camera.
My father, who loved to take photographs and who was a keen user of the Pearlette, studied photography under Mr. Seiji Akiyama, and I remember how, as a child, I often used to be his model for his works. Moreover, it fills me with nostalgia recalling how, after the war, in my junior high school days, my father gave me his Pearlette when I started photography, and I treasured this camera which I used for taking pictures.
As for Kiyoshi Niiyama's works during the "Pearlette Age", he often worked on still life and landscape subjects, and his works, simple in composition, are characterized by very modern expressions with effective use of light and shade produced in black and white. It must have been a very difficult task to produce such tones with the black-and-white films and photographic printing paper available back in those days, and he probably spent long hours in his darkroom working on the lighting and shading effects.
This style of his later developed into his pictorial works focusing on the subjects of trees and stones, and Mr. Hiroshi Hamaya made a fine remark about this in the posthumous edition "Bokuseki no Uta" ("Poems of Trees and Stones"), so I would like to quote Mr. Hamaya's words to close my message.

 

　"Upon visiting Mr. Niiyama's posthumous exhibition entitled "Bokuseki no Uta" ("Poems of Trees and Stones"), and also coming in contact with numerous as-yet-unpublished photographs during the process of compiling his posthumous collection, I felt some of kind of destiny in his photographs. He went out of his way to take photographs of trees and stones. His works consist largely of photographs of dried-up trees and weathered stones and rocks. It remains unknown to me whether he had been captivated by the very materials of his choice of subjects, or whether he had selected these materials as a means for his pursuit of pictorial expressions, or whether it was a mixture of the two. In any case, what struck me was that his photographic works were characterized by extremely Japanese expressions.

　"Edward Weston has also produced many works of withered trees and stones. These natural objects are photographed as they appear through the lens, depicted as true 'straight' images, and Weston established a splendid style of his own. In contrast, not only are Kiyoshi Niiyama's works pictorial, they are also very sentimental. By this, I am not trying to affirm or deny either of these two photographers' styles. Rather, I wish to point out that herein lie the characteristics of Kiyoshi Niiyama's works. His expressions were very Japanese, and, though I know that this can no longer be realized, I was really looking forward to seeing his future works as he continued to pursue his style further."
Over the last few years, I have been holding digital photo exhibitions every year at Gallery Cosmos run by his son Yoichi, and I feel that this encounter was also a destined one.
Bearing a close resemblance to his father, Yoichi is also very fond of photography, and always willing to do things for others, reminding me so of Kiyoshi with his affable smile.