Ihei Kimura

Born on 12 December 1901 in Shitaya-ku (now Taitō-ku), Tokyo, Kimura started taking photographs when very young but his interest intensified when he was around 20 and living in Tainan, Taiwan, where he was working for a sugar wholesaler.

In 1930, he joined the advertising section of the soap and cosmetics company Kaō, concentrating on informal photographs made with his Leica camera.

In 1933, he joined Yōnosuke Natori and others in forming the group Nippon Kōbō ("Japan workshop"), which emphasized "realism" in photography using 35mm cameras; but this rapidly broke up and Kimura formed an alternative group, Chūō Kōbō ("central workshop") with Nobuo Ina and others.

[3] In 1950, Kimura was elected chairman of the newly formed Japan Professional Photographers Society (JPS); together with Ken Domon he did much to encourage a documentary spirit in amateur photography.

His work was included by Edward Steichen in the world-touring 1955 MoMA exhibition The Family of Man.