Utagawa Kunisada

Utagawa Kunisada ran the most commercially successful print studio in nineteenth century Japan. He produced more designs than Hokusai and Hiroshige combined, somewhere in the region of twenty thousand, and for most of his lifetime he was the more famous name.

Kabuki actors were his bread and butter. He knew the theatre world intimately, understood which poses audiences wanted, and could turn a performance into a saleable print within days. He also produced bijin-ga, portraits of beautiful women, and illustrated novels in serial form.

Western collectors largely ignored him for a century, preferring the landscape masters, and the sheer volume of his output counted against him. That has shifted. The best of the actor prints, particularly the close cropped heads from the 1830s and 1860s, show a designer working at the top of his ability under constant deadline pressure.