Utagawa Yoshitora

Utagawa Yoshitora was an ukiyo-e artist active from the late Edo period to the early Meiji era. Born in Edo (present-day Tokyo), the exact dates of his birth and death remain unknown.
Yoshitora was one of the oldest pupils of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. After producing a satirical print that was interpreted by the authorities as criticism of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he was sentenced to fifty days in handcuffs. Shortly afterwards, he left (or was expelled from) Kuniyoshi`s studio. Later in his career, he also used the artist name Mōsai.
Following the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 and the opening of the port of Yokohama to foreign trade in 1859, Japan developed a strong curiosity about the outside world. Westerners became the principal subjects of Yokohama-e, a genre in which Yoshitora excelled. His prints portrayed foreigners in unfamiliar clothing, alongside exotic customs, new technologies, and scenes of everyday life, reflecting how Japanese society perceived the newly arrived foreign cultures.
In addition to Yokohama-e, Yoshitora produced prints of warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, landscapes, and city views. For many of his depictions of foreign countries, he appears to have relied on Western engravings and illustrated sources rather than firsthand observation. His work remains an important visual record of Japan`s transition from isolation to international exchange during the final years of the Edo period and the early decades of the Meiji era.
During the Meiji period, Yoshitora also worked as an illustrator for newly established newspapers. Today, his prints are preserved in major museum collections, including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.