Utagawa Kunisada

Utagawa Kunisada was born in the Honjo district of Edo as Tsunoda Shōzō into a prosperous family that operated a hereditary ferry service. From an early age he showed exceptional artistic talent and, around the age of fourteen, entered the studio of Utagawa Toyokuni I, the leading master of the Utagawa school. In 1844 he adopted his master`s name, signing his works as Toyokuni, although today he is generally recognized as Toyokuni III.
Throughout a career spanning more than fifty years, Kunisada became the most commercially successful and prolific ukiyo-e artist of the nineteenth century, producing tens of thousands of designs, including single-sheet prints, illustrated books, and privately commissioned works. He specialized in portraits of kabuki actors (yakusha-e), bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women), literary subjects, historical scenes, and shunga. His prints vividly captured the fashions, theater, and urban culture of late Edo Japan.
Among his greatest achievements was his collaboration with the novelist Ryūtei Tanehiko on Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji, a popular adaptation of The Tale of Genji set in the Muromachi period. The extraordinary success of the publication inspired the flourishing of Genji-e, prints illustrating scenes and characters from the story.
Although immensely admired during his lifetime, Kunisada`s reputation declined among Western collectors during much of the twentieth century before being reassessed through scholarly research from the 1990s onward. Today he is recognized as one of the greatest masters of ukiyo-e and the central figure of the late Utagawa school. Among his most distinguished pupils were Toyohara Kunichika, Utagawa Sadahide, and Utagawa Kunisada II.