Ken Domon - Domon Chikuho no Kodomotachi ('The Children of Chikuho') - 1960

VERY SCARCE, VERY IMPORTANT JAPANESE PHOTOBOOK, mentioned here:
- Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, The Photobook, volume 1, page 278

TRUE ORIGINAL FIRST EDITION FROM 1960 (not to mix with later editions).
TRUE ORIGINAL THIRD PRINTING FROM 27th of february 1960 (the first three printings were published during one month).

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'Ken Domon, along with Ihei Kimura, is widely regarded as Japan's leading photographer of the immediate postwar years. His book documenting the aftermath of the Hiroshima attack, published in 1958, brought him to the attention of those beyond the photographic world. He worked in the classic photojournalistic mode, seeking to document Japanese life in the troubled aftermath of the war, and was the driving force behind such groups as Shashinka Shudan (The Photographers' Group) Agency, which replicated both the working practices and journalistic ethic of the Magnum photo agency in Paris.
Domon's photographic philosophy was strictly human-istic: he was a 'concerned photographer' in the classic mould, believing that his duty was to record the world exactly as he saw it, and convey his message unambiguously to the widest audience possible.
During the late 1950s, at a time when the rest of the Japanese economy was beginning to recover to prewar levels, the coal-mining areas of Chikuho and Kitakyushu, in the far south of Japan, suffered both from a population exodus and pit closures, due to their distance from the Toko area and decreased demand as the focus of Japanese manufacturing shifted towards the electronic industries. Domon documented the effects of this drastic decline on the miners and their families in two books in 1960, Chikuho no Kodomotachi (The Children of Chikuho) and Rumie chan wa Otosan ga Shinda (Rumie's Father is Dead). Both books look at the plight of the district's children, who were doubly hit by the decline. Firstly, the economic situation led to their fathers' unemployment. Then, as the adults moved away to find work, there was a tendency for the remaining mines to employ more underage labour.
Chikuho no Kodomotachi is both the better-known, and the better book. Domon works in a classic photo-journalistic manner, using the small camera directly and without artistic pretensions. Domon aimed to reach out to the broadest possible readership, thus - in deliberate contrast to the luxurious production of Hiroshima - he had the book printed cheaply, on rough paper, in the manner of a bound newspaper. It was priced at only 100 yen, and sold over 100,000 copies.'
- Gerry Badger -

Patoria Shoten, Tokyo. 1960. First edition, third printing (published on 27th of february).

Paperback (as issued). 180 x 257 mm. 96 pages. 83 black and white photographs. Photos: Ken Domon. Foreword by Noma Hiroshi. Postscript by Ken Domon. Text in Japanese.

Condition:
Outside quiet fresh and for sure better than usual; only little trace of use, no remarkable defects. Inside fresh and flawless, clean with no marks and with no foxing; the only exception are three glued-in, historically interesting newspaper cuttings from the time of the publication's appearance (1960) at the end of the book. Overall fine, better than usual condition.

Highly impressive Japanese photobook, one of the best ever published - hard to find in better condition.

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