Taikichi Irie

Who was Taikichi Irie?

Taikichi Irie was a Japanese photographer. He concentrated on Yamatoji and Buddhist statues.

Irie was born in Nara. He started photography in his teens, influenced by a brother. He began work in a camera store in Osaka in 1925 and in 1931 set up his own company in Osaka, Kōgeisha, which did product and advertising photography as well as selling photographic goods. He started taking photographs of bunraku in 1939 and in 1942 had his first solo exhibition, of bunraku puppets. His house in Osaka was destroyed in a bombing of 1945, and he escaped to his family home in Nara.

Irie's photographs of Buddhist imagery were published as early as the early 1940s, and in 1958 he embarked on what would be a stream of books of such photographs, which had commercial success.

In April 1992, three months after Irie died, a museum largely devoted to his works was set up in Nara: Nara City Museum of Photography.