Ei-Q

. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2000. ISBN 4-473-01750-8]

Ei-Q, whose early work was done under his real name of Sugita Hideo (杉田秀夫), was born in Miyazaki Prefecture, and trained as a painter. He soon became interested in photography and particularly photograms. Ei-Q was influenced by the Surrealist aesthetic and also published essays promoting photography as an art form independent of painting.

This did not imply a rejection of painting, and Ei-Q worked toward what he termed "photo-dessins," a fusion of photograms and paintings. A first collection of these, published in a very small edition in 1936 as "Nemuri no riyū" (眠りの理由, "the reason for sleep"), took him to the forefront of the Japanese avant garde.

Ei-Q was able to resume his work after the war.

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