Local News

UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program has accepted the paintings and diaries depicting the lives of coal miners by late artist Sakubei Yamamoto, a Fukuoka Prefecture native. This is the first time works by a Japanese will be registered in the program. Yamamoto was born in what is now the city of Iizuka and began working in the mines at age seven. After starting work as a security guard at the age of 63, he created nearly 2,000 paintings and pictures until his death in 1984 at the age of 92. Most of his works have been maintained by the Tagawa City Coal-Mining Museum in Fukuoka Prefecture, while other items owned by the Yamamoto family are kept at the Fukuoka Prefectural University.