Ikkō Narahara

Ikkō Narahara[1] (奈良原 一高 Narahara Ikkō?, born November 3, 1931) is a Japanese photographer. Born in Fukuoka, Narahara studied law at Chuo University (graduating in 1954) and, influenced by statues of Buddha at Nara, art history at the graduate school of Waseda University (from which he received an MA in 1959).

He had his first solo exhibition, Ningen no tochi (Human land), at the Matsushima Gallery (Ginza) in 1956. In this Narahara showed Kurokamimura, a village on Sakurajima. The exhibition brought instant renown. In his second exhibition, "Domains", at the Fuji Photo Salon in 1958, he showed a Trappist monastery in Tobetsu (Hokkaidō), and a women's prison in Wakayama.

In the meantime, Narahara had shown his works in the first (1957) of three exhibitions titled The Eyes of Ten; exhibited in all three, and went on to co-found the short-lived Vivo collective.

In 1962-5 he stayed in Paris, and after a time in Tokyo, from 1970-74 in New York. During this tima he took part in a class by The American photographer Diane Arbus. He recorded Arbus' speech during these classes. These recordings would become an interesting document of the artists statements about her own work shortly before she committed suicide.

Narahara's work often depicts isolated communities and extreme conditions. He makes much use of wide angle lenses, even hemispherical-coverage ("circular") fisheye lenses.

In 1967 Narahara won the Photographer of the Year Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association. He has won numerous other prizes.

From 1999 to 2005, Narahara was a professor at the Graduate School of Kyushu Sangyo University (Fukuoka).

Contents

Works by Narahara

Booklength collections

Other books with work by Narahara

Notes

  1. ^ Sometimes "Ikko Narahara" or simply "Ikko".

Sources

External links