Authentic Japanese Woodblock Print by Kawase Hasui - Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto

Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川廣重 Woodblock from"The 53 Stations of the Tokaido" 1832 Artist: Hiroshige Utagawa was born in Edo as Tokutaro Ando and grew up in a minor samurai family. His father belonged to the firefighting force assigned to Edo Castle. It is here that Hiroshige was given his first exposure to art: legend has it that a fellow fireman tutored him in the Kano School of Painting, though Hiroshige’s first official teacher was Rinsai. Though Hiroshige tried to join Toyokuni Utagawa's studio, he was turned away. In 1811, young Hiroshige entered an apprenticeship with the celebrated Toyohiro Utagawa. After only a year, he was bestowed with the artist name Hiroshige. He soon gave up his role in the fire department to focus entirely on painting and print design. During this time he studied painting, intrigued by the Shijo school. Hiroshige’s artistic genius went largely unnoticed until 1832. In Hiroshige's groundbreaking series of woodblock prints, The 53 Stations of the Tokaido (1832-1833), he captured the journey along the Tokaido road, the highway connecting Edo to Kyoto, the imperial capital. With the Tokugawa Shogunate relaxing centuries of age-old restrictions on travel, urban populations embraced travel art and Hiroshige Utagawa became one of the most prominent and successful ukiyo-e artists. He also produced kacho-e (bird-and-flower pictures) to enormous success. In 1858, at the age of 61, he passed away as a result of the Edo cholera epidemic. Utagawa Hiroshige’s woodblock prints...

A wonderful woodblock print image titled "A Little Temple Gate" by one of Japan's finest 20th-century artists and one of, if not the greatest working artis...

About the artist The art of Tomikichiro Tokuriki (1902~1999) is an important bridge between the two great movements of Japanese art in the early twentieth century; shin hanga and sosaku hanga...

Japanese Woodblock Shotei Takahashi (1871-1945) Hiroaki "The Moon and Ishiyama" About the artist Born in Tokyo as Katsutaro Takahashi, Shotei (aka Hiroaki/ Komei) was in his mid-teens when he began to work in the design department of the Imperial Household Agency. He studied Nihonga, or Japanese-style painting, under his uncle Fuko Matsumoto, but also worked as an illustrator for periodicals and textbooks. Beginning in the early Taisho period, Shotei regularly collaborated with the prominent Shin Hanga publisher Shozaburo Watanabe. Shotei used a variety of signatures. Many of his large landscape prints...

A pre-war fine print by Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) depicts the approach to the famous temple in Tokyo Ikegami Honmon-ji on a snowy day. Created in 1931, the image captures the serene a...

This woodblock print by Kawase Hasui (1883–1957), entitied Chuzenji Temple at Utagahama Beach, was created in Showa 6th year, 1931. The work depicts a red Torri gate leading to the v...

"Umagome no tsuki (Moon at Umagome) from the series Tokyo Nijukkei (20 Views of Tokyo), is inarguably one of the most beloved works by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui (1883-1951) create...

Three soft yellow lights shine from windows, beacons from the homes at the end of our path, middle right. At left a canal flows into the sea, and textured clouds float in an early ev...