1. Yumeji Takehisa is known foremost for his Nihonga illustrations of bijin, beautiful women and girls, though he produced a wide variety of works including book covers, serial newspaper illustrations, furoshiki, postcards, and patterned washi paper.
Yumeji Takehisa's career doing illustrations began in June 1905 after he won a competition by the magazine Chugakusekai, owned by Hakubunkan, one of Japan's leading publishing companies.
Yumeji Takehisa's struggles living in Tokyo endeared him to socialist causes, and some of his earliest work was featured in the socialist and anti-war Heimin Shinbun journal Chokugen.
Yumeji Takehisa was arrested and questioned for two days but was released.
Yumeji Takehisa abandoned his direct support for socialist movements, but he maintained strong sense of sympathy to the struggles of the lower class throughout his life.
Yumeji Takehisa married Tamaki Kishi, a subject of many of his paintings and the manager of a Tokyo postcard shop, in 1907.
Yumeji Takehisa met his next lover, Hikono Kasai, shortly after the opening of the store.
Yumeji Takehisa left Tokyo for Kyoto in 1916, followed by Kasai the next year.
Kasai became ill in 1919 and died in 1920, but Yumeji Takehisa met another model, Oyo, before Kasai died.
Yumeji Takehisa documented the devastation of the disaster in a series of illustrations; however, the earthquake ruined his business, and it was a setback he did not recover from for several years.
Yumeji Takehisa left Japan to travel to the United States on 7 May 1931 during the decline of the Taisho Democracy and the rise of the militarist government.
Troubled by the rise of Nazism, which reminded him of the Japanese militarists, Yumeji Takehisa returned to Japan later in 1933.
Yumeji Takehisa died on 1 September 1934 at the age of 49, several months after being admitted to a sanatorium in Nagano Prefecture.
Yumeji Takehisa is buried in Zoshigaya Cemetery in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo.
Yumeji Takehisa heavily influenced Koshiro Onchi, the father of the sosaku-hanga movement.