Kahitsukan Ihei Kimura

The scenes of Japan in the Showa era captured by and left to us by Ihei Kimura evoke in me a range of nostalgic feelings fondly buried in my memory.
Although he keeps his distance from other people close enough to sense their inner feelings and body temperature, Kimura deftly avoids slipping into bad form. His manners are free, light and easy but Kimura never loses sight of his backbone credos of gracefulness and dignity. Kimura sees through others the moment he sets his eyes on them, and his eyes, full of elegant brilliance, never fail to leave a strong impression on those who meet him.

A precocious boy born and bred in downtown Tokyo, who frequented story-tellers' halls and ballad-drama performances from a very early age, Kimura woke up to the joy of photography through a toy camera, according to the artist himself. Thoroughly engrossed in the art, Kimura bought cameras one after the other and started photographing the people and scenes in downtown Tokyo.

In 1936, Kimura had a new opportunity to visit Akita, this time as a judge in a photograph contest. However, he ended up taking pictures of the people and scenes of Akita, claiming that "the area, as an epitome of the reality we live in, has a lot of facets that are particularly amenable to the art of photography." Born of Kimura's strong attachment to a single region in Akita, where he visited a total of 21 times before 1971, the series of photographs dealing with the area not only brings into sharp relief the subtle relationships and developments in a rural area but also presents in a nutshell and through a single farming village the entirety of Japanese culture and climate. The series remains the best of all Kimura's documentary works.

For Kimura, the camera was a far better tool than his own bare eyes - a tool with which to delve deep into the heart of his subject matters.
Kimura, who ceaselessly took pictures of Showa era with exceptional talent and tireless efforts, claims that his eyes for his fellow beings become far clearer than before when he turned 60. His eyes definitely are those of a determined photographer who does not hesitate to grapple with the root problems of life and death and come up with the results to show for it.
An exceptionally gorgeous time continues to flow for the life of Ihei Kimura, whose pet phrase upon seeing a subject matter he liked was: "Isn't that in the best of tastes?"

(Director, Kahitsukan - Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art)
(Translated by Atsuo Tsuruoka)