Taikichi Irie


Taikichi Irie was a Japanese photographer. He concentrated on Yamatoji and Buddhist statues.

Biography

Irie was born in Nara. He started photography in his teens, influenced by a brother. He began work in a camera store in Osaka in 1925 and in 1931 set up his own company in Osaka, Kōgeisha. They did product and advertising photography and sold photographic goods. He started taking photographs of bunraku in 1939 and in 1942 had his first solo exhibition, of bunraku puppets. His house in Osaka was destroyed in a bombing of 1945, and he escaped to his family home in Nara.
Irie's photographs of Buddhist imagery were published as early as the early 1940s, and in 1958 he embarked on what would be a stream of books of such photographs, which had commercial success.
In April 1992, three months after Irie died, a museum largely devoted to his works was set up in Nara, the Irie Taikichi Memorial Museum of Photography Nara City.

Selected works

Bunraku. Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1954.Tōdaiji. Nihon no Tera 1. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1958.Yamatoji. 2 vols. Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1958, 1960.
  • Butsuzō no hyōjō. Tokyo: Jinbun'ōraisha, 1964.
  • Koshiki Yamatoji. Tokyo: Hoikusha, 1971.
  • Tōshō Daiji. Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1973.
  • Yamato no matsuri. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1974.Irie Taikichi. Nihon no Shashinka 10. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997.. A concise survey.
  • Irie Taikichi no Yamatoji. Tokyo: Shōgakkan.
  • *1. Koji to mihotoke. 1996..
  • *Kodō to nobotoke. 1996..