Utagawa Kunitoshi (ukiyo-e artist, 1847)

Kunitoshi, "The Azuma Steel Bridge" from the series "Tokyo's Sights", 1893

Utagawa Kunitoshi ( Japanese 歌 川 国 利 ; * 1847 ; † 1899 ) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist who drew designs for color woodcuts and copperplate engravings .

His real name was Yamamura Kiyosuke; He signed some of his prints using the nickname, gō -name, Baiju with Baiju Kunitoshi.
As far as is known, he was initially a student of Utagawa Kunitsugu (1800–1861), after whose death he continued his training with Kunisada I and later with Kunisada II .

Most of the prints he designed show the innovations and achievements of the Meiji Restoration as they found their expression in the cityscape of Tokyo . In these pictures, the kaika-e , educational work was carried out on the achievements of the new era in the sense of reporting. The prints show Japanese in Western clothing, bank and hotel buildings made of stone, cobbled streets, horse-drawn carriages, steel bridges, railways and the like.
In addition, some warrior prints, musha-e , prints of landmarks of Japan and traditional Tokyo, meisho-e , and prints of oiran des Yoshiwara , bijin-ga , have survived . He is particularly well known for the somewhat bizarre print entitled Pregnant Women Playing in the Summer Heat - Five Heads with 10 Bodies (Mimochi on'na natsu no tawamure - Gotō juttai no zu), which is in the collection of some museums.

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Amy Reigle Newland, et al .: The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints. Hotei Publishing, Leiden 2005, Volume 2, p. 504.
2. ↑ University of California, Japanese Woodblock Print Collection and "The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints", there also the biographical data for reading

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Utagawa is the family name, Kunitoshi the first name.