Born during the Second World War, Nobuyoshi Araki has become Japan's best-known living photographer and its most controversial cultural export. While Araki's reputation is founded on a lifelong interest in the frankly sexual, a serious look at the work spanning his entire career reveals just how deep and varied his work is--memorable pictures of animate and inanimate objects, lonely black-and-white images from the streets of Tokyo, in daylight and at night, unapologetically sentimental landscapes and still-life portraits, and a stunning sequence on his own wife as she lay dying. Araki by Araki is the personal statement of this controversial photographer. Containing two thousand photographs in duotone and color, the book is arranged in chronological order, going back to Araki's beginning as a schoolboy photographer and ending with selections from his most recent work. Araki by Araki thus forms an important narrative of this provocative artist's entire professional and personal life.

"This book offers an opportunity to witness the evolution of Araki's work as understood by the artist himself." -THE Magazine

"...An unflinching leer into urban Japan's unique sexual underworld." -Nerve.com

"He possesses the almost magical ability to transform the most mundane details into objects of fascination, to impregnate them with a raw sexual energy.... This mischievous photographer provokes viewers with images of the female form that are often oddly sensuous and objective at the same time, both erotica and cerebral. Ultimately, Araki presents us with a puzzle: the naked human psyche itself." -The Japan Times

" There is nothing more interesting than women, and nothing more exciting." -Nobuyoshi Araki

Araki by Araki is a record of the career of Nobuyoshi Araki, self-styled "photomaniac" and permanent enfant terrible of the Japanese art world. Published to mark the artist's sixty-third birthday on May 25, 2003, this volume features 2002 photographs covering his entire career from 1963 to 2002.

Sex-trade voyeur, recorder of Tokyo cityscapes, chronicler of married life, or experimental photo artist - no matter what your image of Araki, this collection will reveal new aspects of his talent, as it traces his unique vision over forty prolific years.

All the pictures were selected by Araki himself (who also provides an original commentary), making Araki by Araki not only a comprehensive but highly personal overview of the artist's work to date. High quality color and duotone black and white printing ensure the highest standard of reproduction throughout.

Born in Minowa, Tokyo, in 1940, NOBUYOSHI ARAKI is known worldwide as a photographer of genius. Reviewing his work of the last forty years while choosing the pictures for this book, he came to the conclusion that "photomaniac" would be a more accurate description. Araki continues to live in Tokyo and take photographs obsessively.