Ikkō Narahara

Ikkō Narahara studied at Chuo University. The recorded working language is Japanese. The field of work recorded is photography. Work by Ikkō Narahara is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Photography Collection and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Medal with Purple Ribbon.

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 the same year, Narahara was also included in the First International Subjective Photography Exhibition, an event associated with the newly founded Japan Subjective Photography League that briefly brought emerging photographers such as Kiyoji Ōtsuji and Yasuhiro Ishimoto into the same postwar framework as prewar avant-garde figures including Kansuke Yamamoto. 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 his second solo exhibition, "Domains", at the Fuji Photo Salon in 1958, he showed a Trappist monastery in Tobetsu (Hokkaidō), and a women's prison in Wakayama. From 1962 to 1965 he stayed in Paris, and after a time in Tokyo, from 1970 to 1974 in New York City. During this time 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 artist's statements about her own work shortly before she committed suicide. Narahara's work often depicted isolated communities and extreme conditions. He made 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 won numerous other prizes. From 1999 to 2005, Narahara was a professor at the Graduate School of Kyushu Sangyo University (Fukuoka).

• Yōroppa: seishi shita jikan (Where time has stopped). Kajima, 1967. • Supēn: Idai naru gogo España: Grand tarde, Fiesta, Vaya con Dios. Tokyo: Kyūryūdō, 1969. • Japanesuku (Japanesque). Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbun-sha, 1970. • Ōkoku / Man and his land. Tokyo: Chūōkoronsha, 1971. • Shōmetsu shita jikan / Where time has vanished. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun-sha, 1975. • Seven From Ikko. Tokyo: Unac, 1976. • Ōkoku: Chinmoku no sono, kabe no naka. Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1978. • Chikakute haruka na tabi. Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1979. • Hikari no kairō: San Maruko (Arcade of light: Piazza San Marco). Tokyo: Unac, 1981. • Shashin no jikan. Tokyo: Kōsakusha, 1981. With Seigow Matsuoka. • Narahara Ikkō (Ikkō Narahara). Shōwa shashin zenshigoto 9. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun-sha, 1983. • Venetsia no yoru / Venice: Nightscapes. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1985.. Most of the text is in Japanese only, but the captions and an essay by Narahara are in English as well as Japanese. • Shōzō no fūkei. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1985.. • Ningen no tochi, Human land. Tokyo: Libroport, 1987. • Fukkan, 2017. • Hoshi no kioku (The memory of stars). Tokyo: Parco, 1987. • Venetsia no hikari / Venetian Light. Tokyo: Ryūkō Tsūshin, 1985.. • Burōdowei / Broadway. Tokyo: Creo, 1991.. • Dyushan dai-garasu to Takiguchi Shūzō shigā bokkusu / Marcel Duchamp large glass with Shuzo Takiguchi cigar box. Tokyo: Misuzu, 1992.. • Kū / Emptiness. Tokyo: Libroport, 1994.. • Takemitsu, Tōru and Giovanni Chiaramonte. Ikko Narahara: Japanesque. Milan: Motta, 1994.. In Italian • Revised and augmented edition: Tokyo: Creo, 1995. • Tokyo, the '50s. Tokyo: Mole, 1996.. • Narahara Ikkō (Ikkō Narahara). Tokyo: Iwanami, 1997. • Poketto Tōkyō / Pocket Tokyo. Tokyo: Creo, 1997.. • Ten / Heaven. Tokyo: Creo, 2002. • Mukokuseki-chi / Stateless Land: 1954. Tokyo: Creo, 2004.. • Jikū no kagami / Mirror of space and time. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2004.. • En / En: Circular vision. Tokyo: Creo, 2004..

• Museum of Modern Art, New York: 11 prints (as of January 2020) • Museum of Fine Arts Houston

• Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003..