[Ken Domon Museum of Photography]
Ken Domon is one of the most famous photographers of the Showa era. Ken Domon's style was consistently focused on realism, and his news photographs, temples, Buddhist statues, and other works depicting traditional Japanese culture from his unique perspective led the postwar world of photography as “absolute snapshots with absolute non-staging.”
The Ken Domon Museum of Photography, which houses approximately 135,000 works by Ken Domon, is located in his hometown of Sakata City, Yamagata Prefecture. Starting with “Pilgrimage to Old Temples,” which was Domon's lifework, his works such as “Muroji Temple,” “Hiroshima,” “Children of Chikuho,” “Bunraku,” and “Fubo,” are being preserved and shown to the public in succession. The museum opened in October 1983 as an art museum specializing in photography, a rarity in the world, and focusing on the theme of a single artist.
The Ken Domon Museum of Photography is located in Iimoriyama Park, not far from downtown Sakata City, with a beautiful natural forest and hills in the background, facing Mount Chokai. The pond in front of the building is surrounded by a variety of hydrangeas, and visitors can see rare varieties that cannot be seen anywhere else. The memorial hall was designed by architect Yoshio Taniguchi, who also designed the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the D.T. Suzuki Museum in Kanazawa. The design, in which half of the building is buried underground, is intended to achieve a beautiful fusion of the building and the surrounding natural environment, while fulfilling the purpose of preserving the photographs, and to further mature Ken Domon's spatial art.
Ken Domon said, “Photography is more than the naked eye.” We invite you to view his works, which capture the Showa period, the souls of the people who lived there, and Japan as it really was.
Ken Domon Museum of Photography
http://www.domonken-kinenkan.jp/english/