Chirū Yamanaka

Chirū Yamanaka (山中 散生, Yamanaka Chirū) (1905–1977) was a Japanese poet, critic, and translator based in Nagoya who played a significant role in introducing and promoting Surrealism in Japan.^[1] In 1929 he founded the avant-garde poetry magazine CINÉ, which helped circulate Surrealist ideas and texts in Japan and connected Nagoya’s literary scene to international Surrealist networks.^[1] He also collaborated with critic Shūzō Takiguchi to plan the 1937 Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhinten (海外超現実主義作品展) (Exhibition of Overseas Surrealist Works), a major prewar introduction of European Surrealist works and materials to Japanese audiences.^[2]

As a teenager, Yamanaka contributed poems to the Nagoya coterie publication Aokishi (青騎士) before becoming active as a poet and cultural organizer.^[1] In 1929 he founded CINÉ, an avant-garde poetry magazine published in Nagoya, and developed ties with French Surrealism through correspondence and translation activities, including contacts with figures such as Paul Éluard and André Breton.^[1]

Yamanaka and Takiguchi jointly planned the 1937 touring exhibition Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhin Ten, which presented European Surrealist works and related materials in Japan (including a Nagoya venue) and is widely treated as a key moment in the prewar reception of Surrealism.^[2]

Museum research on interwar avant-garde photography in Japan describes Yamanaka as a central figure in Nagoya’s cross-disciplinary milieu. The 2022 Tokyo Photographic Art Museum exhibition Avant-Garde Rising: The Photographic Vanguard in Modern Japan and its press materials describe Yamanaka as a central figure in Nagoya's cross-disciplinary avant-garde milieu. According to those materials, Yamanaka and the painter Yoshio Shimozato formed the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club; its photography section later became independent as the Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde (1939), in which poet-photographer Kansuke Yamamoto participated.^[3][4]

A biography published by Taka Ishii Gallery notes that Yamamoto’s early interest in modernist art deepened through exposure to Yamanaka’s poetry magazine CINÉ and characterizes Yamanaka as a leading theorist of Surrealism in Japan.^[5] A City of Nagoya profile on Yamamoto further records that Yamamoto edited the Surrealist poetry journal Yoru no Funsui (1938–1939) together with Yamanaka (among others), underscoring their direct collaboration within Nagoya’s Surrealist publishing scene.^[6]

• Modernism
• Surrealism
• Surrealism in Japan
• Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde
• Photography in Nagoya
• Kaigai Chōgenjitsushugi Sakuhin Ten
• Nagoya
• Avant-garde

• City of Nagoya profile: Yamanaka Chirū (PDF)^[1]
• TOPMUSEUM: Avant-Garde Rising exhibition page^[4]