Motoichi Kumagai, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMotoichi Kumagai
Japanese artist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Nagano Prefecture, Japan
About Motoichi Kumagai
- Motoichi Kumagai (?? ??, Kumagai Motoichi, 12 July 1909 – 6 November 2010) was a Japanese photographer and illustrator of books for children, known for his portrayal of rural and school life. Born in Ochi (??; now Achi), Shimoina District, Nagano Prefecture, Kumagai worked from 1930 to 1933 as a teacher.
- He had his first work for children published in the May 1932 issue of the magazine Kodomo no Kuni.
- In 1936 he bought a Pearlette camera (a Konishiroku derivative of the Vest Pocket Kodak), with a simple meniscus lens, and started to use this to photograph village life; his first photograph collection was published two years later by Asahi Shinbunsha.
- In 1939 he went to Tokyo as a government photographer and was later sent three times to Manchukuo; after the war, he returned to teach in his village.A book of photographs of school life published by Iwanami Shoten in 1955 won a photography prize from Mainichi Shimbun.Kumagai published books of works for children as well as books of photographs.
- His photographs are held in the permanent collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and a volume of the series Nihon no Shashinka is dedicated to his work.
- He received various honours for his work, especially since around 1990.
- The village of Achi created a gallery, Kumagai Motoichi Shashin Dogakan, for the permanent exhibition of his work.He died in 2010, in a nursing home in Tokyo, of natural causes.
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