Mingei Arts

Katsukawa Shunzan (active: 1782-1798) created this image of the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune (warrior; literary character, (1159-1189), fighting Musashibo Benkei (warrior, literary character, (1189), on Gojo Bridge. Katsukawa Shunzan’s early prints were portraits of actors in the style of his master Shunsho (c. 1726-1793). Later in the 1780s his depictions of beautiful women showed the [...]

Kitao Masayoshi, (1764-1824), also known as Kuwagata Keisai, was born in Edo, (old Tokyo), of a samurai family, and trained under the color-print master Kitao Shigemasa, an illustrator of books. Masayoshi worked as a painter and printmaker and is well known for his sketch books. In 1794 he was appointed painter-in-attendance to the Daimyo of [...]

Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769-1825) has long been an enigmatic figure in the history of Ukiyo-e. He has been labeled as an eclectic artist by both Japanese and Western critics because he borrowed the style of others at random. Toyokuni I was a man of considerable talent who, for a short time, held together a great [...]

Hasui Kawase, 1883-1957 was a prominent Japanese painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and one of the chief printmakers in the shin hanga (“new prints”) movement. Kawase studied ukiyo-e and Japanese style painting at the studio of Kaburagi Kiyokata. He mainly concentrated on making watercolors of actors, everyday life and landscapes, with [...]