「NEW BOOKS」 Ken Domon's Children

Domon Ken was also a master of "children's photography."
Ken Domon, who started out as a photojournalist in 1935, has published 164 masterpieces, including his prewar breakthrough work, his postwar masterpiece "Children of Chikuho," and his works from the difficult postwar period of the 1950s, when there were many children in Japan! A book full of lively and shining "children"!

Since joining the Nippon Kobo group, which advocated "photojournalism," in 1935 (Showa 10), Domon recorded Japan's upheaval as a photojournalist. Working on a wide range of themes, such as Bunraku, Hiroshima, Children of Chikuho, Appearances, and Pilgrimage to Old Temples, Domon Ken has left behind many timeless masterpieces that remain in the history of photography. He is also well-known for his photographs of children, and one of his breakthrough photographs was of a boy playing in the water, taken during a reporting assignment in Izu before the war.
After the war, he published snapshots of "children" in photography magazines. He even went so far as to announce the publication of a photo collection called "Children of Koto" while visiting the Fukagawa area of Tokyo, but gave up on the idea due to the social situation at the time.

In 1959, as Japan's industrial structure changed and the coal industry was rationalized, he went to cover the coalfields of Kitakyushu and Chikuho, where mines were closing down one after another. He recorded the lives of the impoverished coal miners, including the sisters Rumie and Sayuri, whom he met there. He published a photo book, "Children of Chikuho" (Patria Bookstore, 1960), printed on rough paper and priced at 100 yen. It sold 100,000 copies, and together with the sequel, "Rumie-chan's Dad Died" (Kenkosha, 1960), it became a major social topic and was made into a TV drama and a movie. He collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage due to the exhaustion, and the aftereffects of the trauma meant that he gave up filming with a 35mm camera.

The photographs taken in the 1950s of lively, carefree children playing and overflowing with energy warm the hearts of viewers across generations. At the same time, they also capture Japanese society and the state of affairs, making them valuable records of Japan before the period of rapid economic growth.

Publisher Clevis

Published 2022

Pages 192

Size 258x195mm

ISBN 9784909532893