30 Facts About Toyohara Kunichika

Toyohara Kunichika was a Japanese woodblock print artist.

An alcoholic and womanizer, Kunichika portrayed women deemed beautiful, contemporary social life, and a few landscapes and historical scenes.

Toyohara Kunichika worked successfully in the Edo period, and carried those traditions into the Meiji period.

The artist who became known as Toyohara Kunichika was born Oshima Yasohachi on 30 June 1835, in the Kyobashi district, a merchant and artisan area of Edo.

In 1862 Toyohara Kunichika got into trouble when he made a "parody print", in response to a commission for a print illustrating a fight at a theater.

Toyohara Kunichika's mentor revoked Kunichika's right to use the name he had been given but relented later that year.

Decades afterwards Toyohara Kunichika described himself as greatly "humbled" by the experience.

Toyohara Kunichika's status continued to rise and he was commissioned to create several portraits of his teacher.

At the time Toyohara Kunichika began his serious studies the late Edo period, an extension of traditions based on a feudal society, was about to end.

Toyohara Kunichika had a print at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Toyohara Kunichika often portrayed beautiful women, but his finest works are considered to have been bust, half- and three-quarter length, and close-up or "large-head" portraits of actors, and triptychs that presented "wide-screen" views of plays and popular stories.

The press affirmed that Toyohara Kunichika's success continued into the Meiji era.

In 1863 Toyohara Kunichika was one of a number of artists who contributed landscape prints to two series of famous Tokaido scenes commissioned to commemorate the journey made by the shogun Iemochi from Edo to Kyoto to pay his respects to the emperor.

Toyohara Kunichika recorded some popular myths and tales, but rarely illustrated battles.

Toyohara Kunichika is known to have done some shunga prints but attribution can be difficult as, like most artists of the time, he did not always sign them.

Toyohara Kunichika had many students but few attained recognition as print artists.

Toyohara Kunichika competently depicted actors, and the manners and customs of the day.

Toyohara Kunichika is known to have used these talents in amateur burlesque shows.

In 1861 Toyohara Kunichika married his first wife, Ohana, and in that same year had a daughter, Hana.

Toyohara Kunichika fathered two out-of-wedlock children, a girl and a boy, with whom he had no contact, but he does appear to have remained strongly attached to Hana.

Toyohara Kunichika was described as having an open, friendly and sincere personality.

Toyohara Kunichika enjoyed partying with the geishas and prostitutes of the Yoshiwara district, while consuming abundant amounts of alcohol.

Toyohara Kunichika's greatest passion was said to be the theater, where he was a backstage regular.

Toyohara Kunichika was constantly in debt and often borrowed money from the kabuki actors he depicted so admiringly.

Around 1897, his older brother opened the Arakawa Photo shop, and Toyohara Kunichika worked in the store.

In October 1898 Toyohara Kunichika was interviewed for a series of four articles about him, The Meiji-period child of Edo, which appeared in the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

Toyohara Kunichika died at his home in Honjo on 1 July 1900 at the age of 65, due to a combination of poor health and bouts of heavy drinking brought on by the death at 39 of his daughter Hana while giving birth to his grandson, Yoshido Ito, some months previously.

Toyohara Kunichika was buried at the Shingon Buddhist sect temple of Honryuji in Imado, Asakusa.

Toyohara Kunichika was not successful in his day, but his work became a basis for later research, which did not really begin until quite recently.

In 1876 Laurance P Roberts wrote in his Dictionary of Japanese Artists that Kunichika produced prints of actors and other subjects in the late Kunisada tradition, reflecting the declining taste of the Japanese and the deterioration of color printing.