A-bomb Drawings by Survivors ーFacing the Memories
- DateApril 25, 2019 - December 26, 2019
- VenueEast Building 1F
Special Exhibition Room
Co-organized by NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Station
We were left with only few photos depicting the disastrous conditions of Hiroshima immediately after the atomic bombing. We can do nothing but imagine the scenes—a throng of people wandering around with their burned skin hanging and countless number of bodies covering the surface of the rivers.
A-bomb drawings by survivors are valuable testimonies by survivors; they painted the scenes which were imprinted on their memories.
45 years have passed since the first picture was drawn by an A-bomb survivor. Since then, a total of over 1,200 survivors have created more than 5,000 drawings. Created by artists who had not used paintbrushes for many decades and used whatever materials around them, most of the drawings are unsophisticated. However, they depict the creators' firsthand experiences so vividly that they move viewers.
To produce these drawings, survivors had to face their painful memories they had put away deep in their minds. They drew pictures suffering from the quickening regret and sorrow and struggling against the feeling that they were not able to draw to the fullest extent what they had witnessed. What were they trying to tell us?
1. Prologue: The First Picture
2. The moment-the flash and blast; Mushroom Cloud
6. A Living Hell ⑵; Scenes on August 6―a scroll painting
7. Bodies Altered Beyond Recognition ⑴; Hands and legs—describing details
8. Bodies Altered Beyond Recognition ⑵
9. Mother and child charred black―9 pictures capturing the same sight
16. Epilogue: Indescribable by words or drawings; Producing 8K Ultra-high-definition Data
(The picture on this page was drawn by Senkichi Ueoka)