About the Artist
Ikki Mitsuhashi三橋一樹
Ikki Mitsuhashi (b. 1943, Tokyo) is a Japanese photographer who came to the camera through design. Trained at Musashino Art School, he spent the golden age of Japanese advertising at the Nippon Design Center and as an art director for Lufthansa and Kanebo, before founding his own studio in 1972 and turning to photography in earnest — a designer's photographer.
Life
- 1943
- Born 15 December, Tokyo.
- 1965
- Graduates from Musashino Art School (Commercial Design). Joins the Nippon Design Center, the studio that gathered many of Japan's most influential designers.
- 1968
- Joins Grey-Daiko as art director for Lufthansa German Airlines.
- 1970
- Joins JMS as art director for Kanebo cosmetics.
- 1972
- Founds his own studio, People Co., Ltd., as president and creative director, and begins working as a photographer.
- 1973
- Publishes his first photobook, Star Man (Shashin Hyoronsha).
- 1965–1980
- Awards include Nissenbi Special Selection, the Asahi, Mainichi and Nikkei Advertising Awards, the Dentsu Award and an ADC Bronze.
- 1980
- Solo exhibition Shoot Me, Pentax Gallery, Tokyo. Closes the design studio to work as a photographer.
- 1982
- Publishes Long Long Long Beach (Sansosha), text by screenwriter Shin'ichi Ichikawa, and exhibits it at Pentax Gallery, Tokyo.
- 1986
- Photographer for the Nagoya Expo.
- 1990
- Photographer for the Bird-house project.
- 1991
- Solo exhibition Water Portrait, Gallery P3, Tokyo; shown again in 1996 at Gallery Arteam, Fukuoka.
- 1994
- Publishes Elvis My Happiness.
- 2003
- Spends three months in Ubud, Bali, where the Tropical Garden series begins.
- 2005
- Signs with the art company APJ for Tropical Garden.
- 2000s
- Tropical Garden is photographed partly in Bali and partly in his studio in Japan, a family house; prints are sold through Art Gallery Closet, Tokyo, and privately.
- 2026
- First public online edition.
How the work is described
Every picture on this site is accompanied by a short text — not a caption, but an observation. No first person; prose, not verse; the restraint of the photographs carried into words. The Japanese and English are written independently by fluent writers, never translated word for word.
Books
1973 · Shashin Hyoronsha, Tokyo
Star Man
His debut photobook, from the publisher behind Daido Moriyama's Bye Bye Photography and Shomei Tomatsu's I am a King. 28 pages, 35.5 × 34 cm, softcover. Model: Hiroshi Inoue. Signed first editions are scarce and have sold at European auction for roughly €280–350.
1982 · Sansosha, Tokyo
Long Long Long Beach
A contemplative sequence photographed on a Florida beach — figures before the sea, weighing past against present. Text by screenwriter Shin'ichi Ichikawa. "Everyone was watching the ocean." Retail price at publication ¥1,800.
1994 · Tokyo
Elvis My Happiness
A photographic pilgrimage through the landscapes of Elvis Presley's life, drawing on the artist's own photographs made in the United States decades earlier. Cover reproduction to follow.
Elsewhere
Where his work is written about or offered beyond this site.
Made in Wonder, Tokyo · photobook dealer
Star Man (1973) — Made in Wonder ↗A listing of the debut photobook with its history: published February 1973, a month after he turned from design to photography; "another self within one's heart" as its subject; assistant Michio Kamijo, later of Gallery CAMP.
LinkedIn
Career record ↗Exhibitions from 1980 to 1996, the Nagoya Expo, Ubud in 2003 and the Tropical Garden contract of 2005, in his own entries.