Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1949, Kenro Izu studied Arts at the Nihon University of Tokyo. He currently lives in New York, where he moved in, in 1974.
In 1979, during his first trip to Egypt, Kenro Izu was amazed by the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. His interest for sacred places began. He then traveled to the USA, South America – Mexico, Peru, Chili, and to Europe – England, France and Scotland.
In 1993, Kenro Izu visited Angkor, where he was fascinated by the vision of the jungle in harmony with the ruins of the Temples it invades. He decided to photograph other sacred sites in Asia and Middle-East. He traveled to Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar (ex-Birmania), China, Indonesia, India, Syria and Jordan.
“What fancy me, is the relation I have with a stone monument. I am fascinated by the mystery of life and death, and there is a part of that mystery in these stones.”
He realizes himself his platinum-palladium print.
Besides of this long years of work on sacred places, Izu began in 1984 a series of flowers photographs “Still Life”, and from 1993 he began to photograph nudes.
Kenro Izu then started working on his projet “India sacred within”. A photographic study on India’s spirit, its culture, religions, population diversity and landscapes.
In Cambodgia, in 1995, Izu was deeply chocked by the great number of children victims of anti-personnel landmines, or dead because of the lack of medical care. He decided to open a benevolent hospital for children in Siem Reap, and founded in 1999 a non-lucrative organization Friends Without A Border. The same year, a pediatric hospital has opened in Angkor. This hospital count 50 permanent beds and allowed more then 65 000 children to be cured.
Kenro Izu’s photographs have been acquired by many great collections : Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Boston Museum of Art, Massachusetts Cleveland Museum of Art, U.S.A. , San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The Lane Collection, U.S.A. Canadian Center for Architecture, Canada, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japon, Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japon…
