Ikuo Hirayama1930~2009 平山郁夫

Hirayama Ikuo (June 15, 1930 – December 2, 2009) was a Japanese nihonga painter from Hiroshima Prefecture, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a 15-year-old student. Despite suffering long-term effects of radiation exposure, he rose to prominence in 1959 with “The Transmission of Buddhism,” depicting the monk Xuanzang. From the late 1960s he made repeated journeys along the Silk Road, traveling from the Himalayas to the Taklamakan Desert, with his research culminating in the murals “Daito Saiiki Hekiga” at Yakushiji Temple’s Genjo Sanzoin in Nara. He served twice as president of Tokyo University of the Arts, received the Order of Culture in 1998, and devoted himself to international cultural heritage preservation at sites such as the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang and Angkor.