was a Japanese gay

erotic art Erotic art is a broad field of the visual arts that includes any Work of art, artistic work intended to evoke Sexual arousal, erotic arousal. It usually depicts human nudity or sexual activity, and has included works in various visual mediums, ...

ist. Kimura, along with

George Takeuchi George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Preside ...

and

Sadao Hasegawa was a Japanese graphic artist known for creating homoerotic fetish art. His works are noted for their extensive detail, elaborate fantasy settings, and for their juxtaposition of elements from Japanese, Balinese, Thai, Tibetan Buddhist, Afric ...

, is noted by artist and historian

Gengoroh Tagame is a pseudonymous Japanese manga artist. Regarded as the most influential creator in the gay manga genre, he has produced over 20 books in four languages over the course of his nearly four decade-long career. Tagame began contributing manga ...

as a central figure in the second wave of contemporary gay artists that emerged in Japan in the 1970s.

Biography

Kimura was born in 1947. He began his career in gay erotic art in 1978 as illustrator and cover artist for ''

Barazoku was Japan's first commercially circulated gay men's magazine. It began publication in July 1971 by Daini Shobō's owner's son and editor , although before that, there had been ''Adonis'' and ''Apollo'', its extra issue, around 1960 serving as a ...

'', the first commercially published gay magazine in Japan; he would be a regular contributor before departing the magazine in 1989. He would contribute artwork to other gay magazines throughout his career, notably , '' G-men'', and ''SM-Z''. Kimura would also contribute artwork to the early

yaoi ''Yaoi'' (; ja, やおい ), also known by the ''wasei-eigo'' construction and its abbreviation , is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features Homoeroticism, homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typi ...

magazines ''

June June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the second of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the third of five months to have a length of less than 31 days. June contains the summer solstice in ...

'' and ''Allan'', making him among the first

gay artists ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

to achieve crossover success with a female audience in yaoi publications. He was a co-founding member of Studio Kaiz, along with Naoki Tatsuya and his partner Kihira Kai. Kimura's artwork was ubiquitous in gay publications in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, with Gengoroh Tagame describing Kimura as the "face" of gay magazines in Japan. His works typically depict handsome, masculine men rendered in a

homoerotic Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...

style that is frequently romantic and sensual, rather than explicitly pornographic. Artist Kazuhide Ichikawa has described Kimura's illustrations as "soft" and "nostalgic", while Tagame describes his art as featuring "sporty young men who look familiar, and not beautiful men who appear disconnected from reality." On February 18, 2003, Kimura died at the age of 56 from a

pulmonary embolism Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a blockage of an pulmonary artery, artery in the lungs by a substance that has moved from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream (embolism). Symptoms of a PE may include dyspnea, shortness of breath, chest pain p ...

. A tribute edition of ''Tan Pan Body'', a collection of his works self-published in 1997, was published shortly after his death. His collected works are held by Studio Kaiz.

Collected works

* 1997 – ''Tan-Pan Body'' (画集), self-published * 1998 – ''Go-One Boy'' (作品集), self-published

References

External links

Ben Kimura
at Studio Kaiz (via

Archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kimura, Ben 1947 births 2003 deaths 20th-century Japanese painters Gay artists Japanese erotic artists Japanese LGBT artists 20th-century LGBT people 21st-century LGBT people Gay male erotica artists