岩宮武二╱Takeji Iwamiya
岩波書店（Iwanami Shoten）╱1987╱30 × 32 cm╱225 pp.╱Color
＜Condition＞ Good. Slip-case and jacket show noticeable rubbing; interior pages remain very clean. Signed by the photographer.
＜Description＞
Takeji Iwamiya (1920 – 1989), celebrated for his crystalline photographs of Japanese temples and traditional craft, turned his camera toward the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Ladakh during fieldwork in the mid-1980s.
The resulting volume assembles 155 full-colour plates across 225 pages in a large 30 × 32 cm format.
Images progress from sweeping valley panoramas to candle-lit monastery murals whose vermilion, turquoise and gold pigments glow against ancient stone, forming a contemplative, mandala-like visual circuit.
Essays by Atsushi Ishiguro, Motohiro Yoritomi and Ryō Nakamura contextualise the Tibetan Buddhist iconography and Iwamiya’s photographic approach.
Issued by Iwanami Shoten in May 1987 as a slip-cased hardcover priced at ¥18,000, the book appeared near the close of Japan’s boom era for deluxe photobooks.
It stands as one of Iwamiya’s final major projects before his death on 26 June 1989.
First-edition copies bearing the artist’s signature are seldom encountered outside specialist Japanese dealers, making this well-preserved, signed example a sought-after addition for collectors of post-war Japanese photobooks and Himalayan Buddhist art.
岩宮武二╱Takeji Iwamiya
岩波書店（Iwanami Shoten）╱1987╱30 × 32 cm╱225 pp.╱Color
＜Condition＞ Good. Slip-case and jacket show noticeable rubbing; interior pages remain very clean. Signed by the photographer.
＜Description＞
Takeji Iwamiya (1920 – 1989), celebrated for his crystalline photographs of Japanese temples and traditional craft, turned his camera toward the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Ladakh during fieldwork in the mid-1980s.
The resulting volume assembles 155 full-colour plates across 225 pages in a large 30 × 32 cm format.
Images progress from sweeping valley panoramas to candle-lit monastery murals whose vermilion, turquoise and gold pigments glow against ancient stone, forming a contemplative, mandala-like visual circuit.
Essays by Atsushi Ishiguro, Motohiro Yoritomi and Ryō Nakamura contextualise the Tibetan Buddhist iconography and Iwamiya’s photographic approach.
Issued by Iwanami Shoten in May 1987 as a slip-cased hardcover priced at ¥18,000, the book appeared near the close of Japan’s boom era for deluxe photobooks.
It stands as one of Iwamiya’s final major projects before his death on 26 June 1989.
First-edition copies bearing the artist’s signature are seldom encountered outside specialist Japanese dealers, making this well-preserved, signed example a sought-after addition for collectors of post-war Japanese photobooks and Himalayan Buddhist art.
Image 1 of 19
Image 2 of 19
Image 3 of 19
Image 4 of 19
Image 5 of 19
Image 6 of 19
Image 7 of 19
Image 8 of 19
Image 9 of 19
Image 10 of 19
Image 11 of 19
Image 12 of 19
Image 13 of 19
Image 14 of 19
Image 15 of 19
Image 16 of 19
Image 17 of 19
Image 18 of 19
Image 19 of 19