Jun Fujita: Behind the Camera. This item is unavailable.Jun Fujita: Behind the Camera

Poet, artist, and photographer Jun Fujita was born in a village near Hiroshima and immigrated to Canada as a teenager. By 1915, he was in Chicago, where he worked for the Evening Post until 1929, photographing disasters such as the Eastland capsizing, notorious celebrities such as Al Capone, and U.S. presidents. As one of the only Japanese-American photographers working in the United States at the time, Fujita was commissioned to photograph federal works projects between the wars. He co-owned a cabin on a remote island near Rainer, Minnesota, and spent long periods there, painting and writing poetry, mostly haiku and tanka. His first book of poems was called Tanka: Poems in Exile (1923). The Art Institute of Chicago holds some of Fujita's colour photographs of natural landscapes. His cabin, now located within Voyageurs National Park, still stands. This publication is the first monograph of the artist's life and work.

Graham Harrison Lee is a writer, graphic designer, and the great nephew of Jun Fujita. Lee spent five years researching Fujita's life, retracing his great uncle's footsteps, and creating a story that combines a rich family history with historical and personal photographs of extraordinary Chicago events. Jun Fujita was a first-generation Japanese-American photographer, actor, and poet. He lived most of his life in Chicago and worked for the Chicago Evening Post and Chicago Daily News. He was the first Japanese-American photojournalist and the only photographer to document the aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day massacre.