Utagawa Yoshiiku (Ochiai)
Japanese 1833-1904 Utagawa
Japanese,
(1833–1904)
Born the son of teahouse proprietor Asakusa Tamichi in 1833, Yoshiiku became a student of ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi toward the end of the 1840s. His earliest known work dates to 1852 when he provided the backgrounds to some actor prints by his master.
Yoshiiku's earliest works were portraits of actors (yakusha-e), beauties (bijin-ga), and warriors (musha-e). He later followed Kuniyoshi into making satirical and humorous pieces, and became the leading name in the field after Kuniyosh's death in 1861. He illustrated the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun ("Tokyo Daily News") from 1874 to 1876, and then co-founded the Tokyo E-iri Shinbun ("Tokyo Illustrated News"). The latter folded in 1889, and Yoshiiku returned to making prints. He struggled during his last years, and his last known print appeared in 1903. His three known students, Ikumura, Ikuei, and Ikumasa, failed to achieve recognition.
Yoshiiku had ten children with his second wife, only one of whom survived childhood. Yoshiiku died at age 71 in a temporary residence on 6 February 1904 in Honjo. He was buried at Anseiji temple in Asakusa and given the posthumous Buddhist name Juzen'in Hōkinikkaku Koji.
Source: wikipedia.com
The Utagawa school of Japanese painters, woodblock print designers and book illustrators are known for their work in the ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) genre. The school was founded by Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814), who moved from Kyoto to Edo (modern Tokyo), where he set up a woodblock print studio. The subject matter of ukiyo-e was the famous courtesans and leading kabuki actors of the Yoshiwara entertainment district in Edo. The Utagawa school was the most prolific in the field of printmaking, accounting for over half of Japan’s extant ukiyo-e prints. The lineage continued into the modern period in the work of artists such as Utagawa Yoshiiku.