Minomura Kou
~ 1920 - 1992
Minomura Kou played an important role in the formation of post-war SM culture. He did editorial work for early SM magazines such as Kitan Club, Uramado, SM Collector, Abu Hunter and SM Kitan. He was one of the principal editors of Kitan Club magazine and the founder of Uramado magazine. But that is not all, he also was a novelist, short-story writer, film critic, essayist, columnist, bakushi (rope master), photographer, painter, book jacket illustrator, magazine illustrator, 'adviser' to several bondage magazines in the "second wave" of SM publications in the 1970s and a member of Ito Seiu's artistic inner circle in post war.
This artist used various pseudonyms, known are:  Reiko Kita (after his wife's maiden name), Ko Minomura, Kyoji Minota, Eijiro Takenaka and Kikuzo Ima.
He was born in Kyoto to a family that ran a printing business out of their home. As a child, he encounters Seiu Ito's torment art in the book Documentation on Abnormal Customs, which he found in his grandfather's book collection. Around 1930 he left Kyoto School of Fine Arts at mid term and became the live-in apprentice to the Japanese painter Baisen Kobayashi. He volunteered for the Navy in 1939, due to a ship sinking (in 1944) he was discharged from the Navy and wandered across Japan and was employed at various jobs before becoming an editorial reporter for the evening newspaper Central Kyoto News.
In the summer of 1947 Kiyoshi Sugiyama, who worked at the Central Kyoto News, takes him to the editorial office of Kitan Club (Akebono Shobo), which gave Suma a chance to begin drawing illustrations for Kitan Club. There were other irregularly published pulp magazines besides Kitan Club, and Suma drew illustrations for Jouen Shin-syu and others as well. Around 1950 the name "Reiko Kita" and "Toshiyuki Suma" began to appear in Kitan Club. In 1951 he fully participated for Kitan Club.
For more info on this artist visit Nawapedia.
2 albums/25 artworks
Latest Update: May 23, 2024 -> Created page for this artist (25 artworks)
