Torii Kotondo

Torii Kotondo ( Japanese 鳥 居 言 人 , real name: Saitō Shin ( 斎 藤 信 ); born November 21, 1900 in Tokyo ; died July 13, 1976 ) was one of the last Japanese woodcut artists in the ukiyoe style.

life and work

Kotondo was born as Saitō Shin and adopted at the age of fifteen by Torii Kiyotada (1875-1941), fifth named Kiyotada and seventh in the Torii line of succession. The Torii had been visual artists and designers for the Kabuki theater for generations . Kotondo first studied painting in the Yamato-e style under Kobori Tomoto ( 小 堀 鞆 音 ; 1864-1931), then especially from 1917 Nihonga under Kaburagi Kiyokata , who also taught Itō Shinsui , Kasamatsu Shirō and Kawase Hasui .

In addition to drawings for the Kabuki magazine Engei Gahō ( 演 芸 画報 ), designing Kabuki scenes, programs and posters, he painted bijinga , i.e. portraits of beautiful women. This side of his art was taken up by the publishers Sakai and Kawaguchi, who published his small woodcuts on this subject between 1927 and 1935.

His prints were well received in the West and were shown at both exhibitions of modern Japanese woodblock prints in 1930 and 1936 at the Toledo Museum of Art . Around 1935 he changed his stage name to Kiyonobu ( 清 言 ). After the death of his adoptive father in 1941, he became the eighth head of the Torii direction and Torii Kiyotada V. ( 五代 目 鳥 居 清 忠 ).

literature

• Lawrence Smith: Torii Kotondo . In: Modern Japanese Prints 1912–1989. British Museum, 1994. ISBN 1-55859-871-5 .
• MOA Bijutsukan (Ed.): Kindai Nihon no mokuhanga. MOA Bijutsukan, 1983.

Web links

Commons : Torii Kotondo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Kotondo on ukiyo-e.org

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Torii is the family name, Kotondo the first name.