Kumagai Motokazu - Aichimura - 1938

Numerous photographic plates. Japanese text. Small folio. Original boards in dustwrapper (minor damage to spine), light browning throughout, still a very good copy. Kumagai Motoichi was born in Nagano Prefecture in 1909. 'Achimura' is his first work which was published in great acclaim. It is the first extensive photographic record of the economic and social (ethnographic) conditions in a small village in Nagano prefecture throughout one year. The work inspired photographers like Domon Ken, Hamaya Hiroshi, Miki Shigeru and Tanaka Toshio to look at the folklore studies (under the guidance of ethnographic scholars like Yanagita Kunio) as a way if escaping the ideologically charged atmosphere of the times. Only three copies in OCLC.