Japanese photographer · Tokyo
Ikki Mitsuhashi belongs to the generation of Japanese photographers who learned to see at the drawing table. He spent the loudest decade of Japanese advertising as a designer and art director, then turned to photography in 1972 and never turned back.
His career follows Japanese photography's golden years: a debut photobook, Star Man, from the house that published Daido Moriyama; solo shows at Tokyo's Pentax Gallery; the Water Portrait series; and, from 2003, Tropical Garden, begun during three months in Ubud, Bali. The still lifes of tropical plants from that series are as calm and exact as a Japanese garden.
This site is where that work now lives. Every photograph is offered as a limited-edition archival print, made to order in Tokyo, numbered in continuity with the ledger he kept by hand, and shipped worldwide. It is sold directly by the studio, with no gallery in between. Alongside the prints are the three books he published between 1973 and 1994, the story behind each picture, and a room you can walk through. In time, the site will add the memoir he is writing and the photographs he made in America sixty years ago.
- b. 1943, Tokyo
- Musashino Art School · Nippon Design Center
- Art director: Lufthansa, Kanebo
- Founder, People Co., Ltd., 1972
- Solo shows: Pentax Gallery, Tokyo (1980, 1982) · Gallery P3 (1991)
- Nagoya Expo photographer, 1986
- Three photobooks, 1973–1994
- ADC Bronze · Nissenbi Special Selection · Asahi, Mainichi, Nikkei & Dentsu advertising awards
Japanese gallery art · Luxury nature photography · Japanese still-life photography · Tropical botanicals · Limited editions, signed by the artist
First release · Tropical Garden
Quiet things, held up to the light
One summer, on an island in Indonesia, Ikki Mitsuhashi turned his camera on plants of his own invention — flowers, leaves, fruit, grown nowhere but in the tropical forest of his imagination. What emerged was Tropical Garden, a body of work wrapped in a light entirely its own.
Fierce at times, wistful at others, these images now speak to us again, quietly, after twenty years.
Three ways to see the work
Three prints, made and photographed
Each edition is printed to order on archival cotton paper by a Tokyo fine-art lab, numbered, and accompanied by a bilingual certificate. The photographs below are the actual test prints.
TR-29 · Colour
When the Flower Bows
Perhaps no life blooms in fair weather alone.
Artist's edition · M no. 1 of 80
from ¥27,000
TR-10 · Colour
The Source of Life
The eye is caught at first glance.
Artist's edition · M no. 1 of 80
from ¥27,000
TR-31 · Colour
Leaning Together
Leaning together.
Artist's edition · M no. 1 of 80
from ¥27,000
Two lives, angled toward the same light, asking nothing more of each other than to remain nearby.
— from Leaning Together
The Room · our digital gallery
Walk through the Room
One room, four walls, four photographs, hung at the height you would see them in a gallery. Turn slowly, step closer, and take your time with each picture before you choose one to live with.
Enter the Room →
How an edition is made
Printed to order
Pigment giclée on your choice of three fine-art papers, by a professional Tokyo lab.
Numbered honestly
Edition numbers continue the artist's original ledger. Nothing is restarted.
Signed, if you wish
Hand-signed by the artist while his health allows, or left unsigned — your choice.
Certified
A bilingual certificate of authenticity travels with every print.
From the journal
Essays on Japanese photography, the photobooks, the cameras and the making of each print.
24 September 2026 · Monthly release
September: Mango and Flame
September's picture is new to the collection: Mango and Flame, one of ten works added to the online edition this month. A green mango, and three flame-red flowers rising from it.
23 September 2026
Art consulting for Japanese gallery art, now open: a free proposal for any space
The studio of Japanese photographer Ikki Mitsuhashi now offers free art consulting for homes, hotels, offices, restaurants, clinics, embassies and galleries. Send a photo of the wall; receive a proposal of works, sizes and arrangement, shown on your own wall.
23 September 2026
Japanese art for embassies, consulates and cultural centres abroad
How a living Japanese artist's numbered editions can present contemporary Japan with dignity in reception halls, residences and offices abroad — documented, bilingual and easy to lend between sites.
Questions & inquiries
Ask us anything
A question about a print, a size or paper, framing, licensing an image, or several prints for a home, hotel or office — write here and it comes straight to the studio. We reply within two working days.
Choosing for a particular wall? Send a photo for a free art consultation →
Membership
Four circles, none of them paid for
Membership grows with the collection you build: early sight of each monthly print, and a standing discount from 2% to 10%.
- Letters 便りA letter, once a month.2%
- Patrons 後援You saw it first.4%
- Collectors' Circle 蒐集の会The artist writes back.7%
- Ikki Club 一樹クラブFor those who hang them for a living.10%
See membership and perks →