Ihei Kimura - The Realm of Peace and Tranquility - 1943

The Realm of Peace and Tranquility

Ihei Kimura
ARS/1943/japanese/265*185*10/Limited to 1,500 copies.

"The Realm of Peace and Tranquility," a photo collection by Ihei Kimura, one of postwar Japan’s leading photographers. When it comes to Kimura’s representative works from the postwar period—as exemplified by "Paris"—many of them fall into the categories of "snapshots" and "women." On the other hand, during the prewar period from the 1930s to the 1940s, as Kimura himself stated—"The essence of photography lies in realism; the Leica camera embodies this, and its practical application is found in photojournalism"—the focus of his work was on journalism. The results of this work can be seen in the photojournalism magazines *NIPPON* and *FRONT*, produced in collaboration with members of the Nihon Kobo group such as Yonosuke Natori, as well as in *Japan Through A Leica*. This book, published before World War II, is considered one of Kimura Ihei’s masterpieces and consists of snapshots, portraits, and landscapes taken in Manchuria. It is a magnificent collection in which journalistic elements are exquisitely blended with Kimura’s artistic sensibility and playful spirit.