Immersed in photography from his earliest days—his father had a portrait studio—Masahisa Fukase began as a documentary photographer for magazines before developing his own profoundly introspective oeuvre. In 1992 Fukase suffered an accident that kept him in intensive care until his death in 2012.  His 1986 book Karasu (Raven), in which the dark birds are a metaphor of his solitude since his second wife Yohko left him, was universally acclaimed. Masahisa Fukase’s work was a great success in the United States and in Europe. His work was shown in the West for the first time in 1974, in New York, as part of MoMA’s historic New Japanese Photography exhibition, and has since been exhibited in exhibitions all over the world. He has published many important books including Yohko (1978), and Bukubuku (2004).