Item #25988 Japanese School Life Through the Camera. Ihei Kimura, photographer.
Japanese School Life Through the Camera
Japanese School Life Through the Camera
Japanese School Life Through the Camera
With 50 mounted images

Japanese School Life Through the Camera

Kimura, Ihei (photographer). [ Tokyo, Japan ]: The Society for International Cultural Relations 1937. First Edition. 6 leaves of introductory text (printed on front only) + 50 leaves each with a mounted fine half-tone full page photograph, tipped onto thick paper support with roughly 3/8 inch blank margins, and with printed captions beneath. Spiral bound. The whole contained in a custom cloth clamshell box with leather spine labels. Pageblock is 8 3/4 x 12 3/8 inches. Text is in English, French and German.

Ex-library, with front pasteboard cover detached lacking portion that would have engaged the spiral binding, and with significant chipping and loss to front illustration around the edges as well as old penned library markings. Rear pasteboard cover still attached to spiral metal binding, but with significant wear to the edges. Internally, the textblock is lightly foxed for the first few pages, with some library markings. The photographs are generally in fine shape, mounted with a blank "safety margin" which in this case was a wise choice. The foreedge has been impacted in a number of places causing short tears, creasing, and in a few cases very minor chips to the thick paper support. The tipped on images have escaped any significant damage, noting one small edge tear. Overall a poorly designed production prone to damage from the day it was produced. Good. Spiral bound. [25988]


The fifty photographs by Kimura are quite striking, depicting a wide range of Japanese School Life. The images cover Kindergarden, Primary school, High school (mostly girls) and technical and commercial school (mostly boys and men) Later images are of higher level schooling, including University, and even school for the deaf and dumb. Everything from gymnastics to dance, classroom scenes to young women preparing tea, to odder images like a group of mostly naked young boys standing around a UV lightsource (they are all wearing eye protection). By the nature of the fifty image limit, it is at best a survey of what the Japanese Cultural Relations people wished the world to see of their school system at the time - and for which it is most useful. This copy with a sticker inside the front cover noting "with compliments of Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai (The Society for International Cultural Relations). An interesting external view into pre-WWII Japan.

Photographer "Ihei Kimura (12 December 1901 – 31 May 1974) was one of the most celebrated Japanese photographers of the twentieth century, particularly known for his portrayal of Tokyo and Akita Prefecture. Born on 12 December 1901 in Shitaya-ku (now Tait -ku), Tokyo, Kimura started taking photographs when very young but his interest intensified when he was around 20 and living in Tainan, Taiwan, where he was working for a sugar wholesaler. He opened a photographic studio in Nippori, Tokyo in 1924. In 1930, he joined the advertising section of the soap and cosmetics company Ka , concentrating on informal photographs made with his Leica camera. In 1933, he joined Y nosuke Natori and others in forming the group Nippon K b ("Japan workshop"), which emphasized "realism" in photography using 35mm cameras; but this rapidly broke up and Kimura formed an alternative group, Ch K b ("central workshop") with Nobuo Ina and others." (wiki)

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