Kitagawa Utamaro

Kitagawa Utamaro is best known for his prints of women, and he changed how they were shown. He moved in close, filling the sheet with a head and shoulders, so that expression, hairstyle and a gesture of the hands carry the whole image. His figures are tall and graceful, with delicate lines and soft colour.

He trained with Toriyama Sekien and rose to fame in the 1790s working with the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō in Edo. He was unusual among print designers in gaining a national reputation during his lifetime, and he also produced fine studies of insects and nature in illustrated books. More than two thousand prints by him are known.

His work reached Europe in the nineteenth century and influenced painters such as Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Look for the way a cropped view or a half hidden face draws you into an ordinary moment.