Kenro Izu: Thirty Year Retrospective

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1949, Kenro Izu moved to New York City in the early 1970s, where he quickly established himself as a master of still life photography.

A chance viewing of the mammoth plate photographs by the Victorian photographer Francis Frith led Izu to travel to Egypt in 1979, to photograph the pyramids and other sacred monuments. Thus began the artist’s renowned series “Sacred Places,” which includes work from holy sites in Syria, Jordan, England, Scotland, Mexico, Easter Island and, more recently, Buddhist and Hindu sites in India, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China.

Using a custom-made, 300-pound camera, Izu creates negatives that are 14 inches high by 20 inches wide. The resulting platinum palladium prints are widely recognized as being among the most beautiful prints in the history of the medium. Kenro Izu’s Thirty Year Retrospective, a stunning collection of the artist’s most powerful work to date marks the thirtieth year of the ongoing “Sacred Places” series. This gorgeous new monograph published by Nazraeli Press comprises some 100 plates, beautifully printed in duotone on matt art paper and bound in Japanese cloth and will be on sale at the book signing following the talk. This is Kenro Izu’s third talk at the museum.

His work has been the subject of two exhibitions here, the most recent being Bhutan: The Sacred Within (2007).