Kohei Yasu

Kohei Yasu was born in 1846 in Fujisawa in the Rikuzen-Iwai region of what is now Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan. Growing up during the turbulent final years of the Edo period, he sought a path overseas after the Meiji Restoration. The exact route of his journey is not fully documented, but he is understood to have arrived in Guatemala by way of Mexico.^*1

After settling in Guatemala City, he opened a studio named "Fotografía Japonesa" (Japanese Photography) around 1878. The name announced his origins as a Japanese photographer. He converted to Catholicism and took the baptismal name Juan José de Jesús Yas.^*2

Yasu established himself in Guatemala and photographed Antigua Guatemala's religious processions, portraits of upper-class families and individuals, and urban landscapes. His glass negatives were later held by the Noriega family and acquired for preservation by CIRMA (Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica) in 1982. He died in Guatemala in 1917. He is among the earliest — and possibly the first — Japanese photographer to settle and work in Central America.^*1

Semana Santa documentation — visualizing colonial-era Catholic culture

One of Yasu's main photographic subjects is the Catholic religious processions of Antigua Guatemala, particularly Semana Santa (Holy Week). These photographs document the Catholic traditions formed during the colonial period — a dimension not unrelated to Yasu's own conversion to Catholicism and adoption of the baptismal name Juan José de Jesús Yas. His gaze was not that of an external observer alone; he also held the perspective of someone integrated into the faith he was documenting.^*2

Antigua Guatemala, as the former center of Spanish colonial administration, maintains a rich Catholic visual culture; its Semana Santa processions are among the largest in the world today. Yasu's photographs constitute valuable visual evidence of this culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and are positioned within Guatemalan cultural heritage research as a primary visual source.^*4

Studio portraiture and the meaning of "Fotografía Japonesa"

Yasu's other major subject is studio portraiture of Guatemala City's upper-class families and individuals. His portraits follow the conventions of Latin American commercial studio photography of the period while showing an approach that seeks to draw out the subject's individual qualities. Works held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum retain the formal composition of studio portraiture while introducing an individual dimension in the relationship with the sitter.^*6

The studio name "Fotografía Japonesa" can be read as a commercial strategy. In late nineteenth-century Guatemala, Japan was a distant Eastern country, and a studio bearing its name likely conveyed both novelty and a confidence in technical skill. His use of Japanese identity as a commercial resource — in a period when Japan's technological modernization was a recognized fact internationally — is a notable aspect of his practice viewed from both photographic and emigration history.^*1

Glass negatives — CIRMA preservation and the British Library EAP project

Yasu's glass negatives survive in CIRMA's preservation collection. CIRMA acquired the collection from the Noriega family in 1982 and has since functioned as a preservation institution for Guatemalan photographic heritage. The British Library's EAP165 project (Endangered Archives Programme) has engaged with the digitization and preservation of photographic collections in rural Guatemala, and Yasu's holdings are referenced among relevant materials.^*8

The Library of Congress also holds Yasu-related material within its Guatemala photographic holdings, and the Japanese Embassy in Guatemala's CIRMA introduction page explains the collection's significance in Japanese. These institutional holdings make the archive increasingly accessible to researchers in both Japan and internationally.^*5

Intersection of Japanese emigration and photographic history — a rare Central American case

Kohei Yasu is among the earliest Japanese individuals in emigration history for whom photographic records survive in Latin America. Japanese overseas migration in the late nineteenth century centered on Hawaii, North America, and Brazil; migration to Guatemala was extremely rare. Yasu opened a photography studio there and remained active within local society for nearly forty years, having integrated into Guatemalan life through religious conversion and a Spanish name.^*1

Chen Hongrui's doctoral thesis from Heidelberg University analyzes the history of Japanese photography in Guatemala, treating the Kohei Yasu case in detail as a point of connection between Japanese emigration history and photographic history. The museum.or.jp record of a 2025 exhibition reflects growing recognition of Yasu's case within Japan's museum community.^*11

Kohei Yasu was almost entirely absent from the main narratives of photographic history throughout the twentieth century — unknown in Japan's photographic history and long overlooked in Guatemala's as well. After CIRMA acquired the collection from the Noriega family in 1982, the existence of the materials was confirmed, but substantive research and exhibition began still later.^*1

The Japanese Embassy in Guatemala has collaborated with CIRMA on exhibitions and public communication regarding Yasu's photographs, raising awareness of his work in both Japan and Guatemala. An exhibition held in 2025 continued this ongoing effort. His case is increasingly recognized as a rare point of connection between Japanese and Latin American cultural and photographic history.^*9

Coverage in Japanese arts media including an Artscape report has introduced Yasu's photographs as a valuable record at the intersection of Japan and Guatemala. Works held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum are publicly accessible, making them available to researchers in Japanese photographic history. As both a photographer and an emigrant who converted to Catholicism and integrated into Central American society, Yasu represents a figure whose significance spans multiple historical contexts.^*7