Born 1938 in Ikeda-shi, Osaka. Switching from design to photography, he worked as an assistant for Takeji Iwamiya and Eikoh Hosoe, before embarking on his career as a freelance photographer in 1964. For series such as “Japan: A Photo Theater”, which appeared in Camera Mainichi in 1967, he received the New Artist Award from the Japan Photo-Critics Association.

In recent years, large-scale exhibitions of Moriyama’s work have been held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1999; traveling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Japan Society, New York), the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2011), and London’s Tate Modern (double exhibition with William Klein 2012-13). In 2012, Moriyama received the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography (New York), also ordered Legion of Honour Chevalier in 2018 by French government, also award winner of The Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2019 which cemented his high international reputation.