This book is the result of the first collaboration between Hosoe and Hijikata Tatsumi, founder of the Butoh dance movement. The collaboration began in 1959 when Hosoe attended a performance of Hijikata's adaptation of Mishima Yukio's Kinjiki [Forbidden Colours]. The photographs here are of members of Hijikata's group interpreting ideas of sexuality and the relationship between men and women. Hosoe, like many Japanese photographers at the time, was influenced by the work of Ed van der Elsken, who spent three months in Japan during a 14-month trip through Asia, Africa, and America undertaken between 1960 and 1961 during which he took the photographs that were later published in his book Sweet Life (1966). During this trip, van der Elsken met with many photographers, including Hosoe. The two became friends, and van der Elsken later contributed a text to Man and Woman, in which he criticises much nude photography before praising Hosoe's approach.

First edition; 4to (236 x 181 mm, 9¼ x 7¼ in); 33 black-and-white photographs by Hosoe Eikoh, printed in gravure, poems by Taro Yamamoto, texts by Ed van der Elsken and Fukushima Tatsuo, designed by Minoru Araki, bookseller's ticket on front free endpaper, 16pp stapled booklet with English translation of the texts; yellow paper-covered boards, titles to front in grey, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, fading to spine, publisher's printed slipcase, light wear and rubbing, and printed grey wraparound band, toned and torn with a small chip at spine, a near fine copy in a very good slipcase and band; [60]pp.

Regards 128; The Photobook A History, I p279; 802 Books from the Auer Collection p413; Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s pp50-5; The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990 pp358-359.