Japanese Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

Kitagawa Utamaro was born around 1753 in Japan, and died in 1806. Starting out in the Kano school of painting, he later switched to the more popular Ukiyo-e style. His best known works date from about 1791. In 1804 he was accused of insulting the name of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a 16th century military ruler who'd united Japan and instituted the restriction limiting the bearing of arms to the Samurai class, because of a series of prints, "Hideyoshi and his Five Concubines," and was reportedly sentenced to be handcuffed for 50 days. Whether the punishment played a role in his death just two years later is not known. [More...]

Katsushika Hokusai was born in 1760 in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, and died in 1849. He initially studied woodblock printing in the studio of Katsukawa Shunsho. While Hokusai was a productive artist and is today the most famous of the Ukiyo-e artists, he lived in poverty for most of his life - most of his better known work was produced after he was 60 years old, including the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," of which In the Well of a Wave at Kanagawa is the best known. [More...]

Ando Hiroshige was born in 1797 in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, and died in 1858. The son of a samurai and retainer of the Shogun, Ando Hiroshige grew up in the Yayosu barracks just east of the Edo Castle. Starting around the age of 15, he apprenticed under Utagawa Toyohiro. He began working in the Ukiyo-e style until the early 1830s, reportedly after seeing some woodblock prints by Hokusai. His reputation was made shortly thereafter with a series of woodblock prints, "The 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road." His daughter married two other artists who took his name, Shigenobu (Hiroshige II), from whom she became separated, and Shigemasa (Hiroshige III), who became Hiroshige's heir. [More...]