Ikuo Hirayama cropped 2 Ikuo Hirayama 200704

Ikuo Hirayama (''Hirayama Ikuo'' 平山郁夫; 15 June 1930 – 2 December 2009), was a Japanese

Nihonga ''Nihonga'' (, "Japanese-style paintings") are Japanese paintings from about 1900 onwards that have been made in accordance with traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and materials. While based on traditions over a thousand years ...

painter and educator. Born in Setoda-chō,

Hiroshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Hiroshima Prefecture has a population of 2,811,410 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 8,479 km² (3,274 sq mi). Hiroshima Prefecture borders Okayama ...

, he was famous in Japan for

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

paintings of dreamy

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Biography

In 1952, he graduated from the Tokyo School of Art, or what is today's

Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music or is the most prestigious art school in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju and Adachi, Tokyo. The university has trained renowned artists in the fields of painting, scul ...

(popularly known as "Geidai"), and became a disciple of

Maeda Seison was the art-name of a nihonga painter in the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan. His legal name was Maeda Renzō. He is considered one of the greatest contemporary Japanese painters, and one of the leaders of the Nihonga movement. Biography ...

. Hirayama also served as President of his alma mater twice (1989–95 and 2001–05). He produced a series of paintings depicting the introduction of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

to Japan. A

hibakusha ''Hibakusha'' ( or ; ja, 被爆者 or ; "person affected by a bomb" or "person affected by exposure o radioactivity) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at th ...

, he portrayed the

A-bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

attack on Hiroshima. He was also active in the preservation of the cultural heritage of the world (e.g., the

Bamiyan Bamyan or Bamyan Valley (); ( prs, بامیان) also spelled Bamiyan or Bamian is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Its population of approximately 70,000 people makes it the largest city in Hazarajat. Bamyan is at an alti ...

Buddhas) and is internationally appreciated for his efforts in this sphere. Hirayama was awarded the French

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

Order in 1996 and Japan's Order of Cultural Merit in 1998 amongst others. He was the President of the Tokyo University of fine Arts and Music and President of the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO. He was sometimes criticized for his profit making activities at the time when he held a position of President of a national university. Some (would-be) connoisseurs even cast doubts upon the authenticity of his highly profitable artworks, claiming that his wife and others made them under his name. He was a patron of historical institutions and gave £500,000 pounds to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

for the creation of The Hirayama Studio, a conservation studio specializing in Eastern pictorial art, which was opened in 1994 and named after hi

He had a studio in

Kamakura, Kanagawa is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

. He also established the Hirayama Trainee Curator in Silk Road Coins at the British Museum. There is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

dedicated to the artist in Setoda which also has an English Web site a

The

Prix Hirayama Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who als ...

is awarded by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for distinguished contributions to scholarship on Asia.

Collecting

Ikuo Hirayama actively collected material relating to the historical silk road. The

Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum is a Japanese museum named after the painter and collector Ikuo Hirayama. The museum opened in 2004 in the Yamanashi region of Japan. It is one of the few and significant museums about the Silk Road, to be loca ...

includes Chinese and Gandhara sculpture, Sasanian and Central Asian silver ware, toilet trays and coins, in total at least 222 pieces. His collection is particularly notable for its collection of Gandharan art from Pakistan and Afghanistan. His collection of Central Asian coins was small, containing only 101 items, though these included one of the best preserved of Kanishka I's Buddha coins as well as other important examples Tanabe, K (1993) Silk Road Coins: the Hirayama Collection

References

External links

* *Obituary, in The Independent, 12 Dec 2009.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ikuo-hirayama-5512206.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirayama, Ikuo 1930 births 2009 deaths Hibakusha Nihonga painters Buddhist artists Tokyo School of Fine Arts alumni Recipients of the Order of Culture Recipients of the Legion of Honour Ramon Magsaysay Award winners 20th-century Japanese painters UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors People from Onomichi, Hiroshima