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Asakusa Imado, Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Asakusa Imado, c. 1832/33

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

1797–1861 · Japanese painting, Ukiyo-e · 15 works

Utagawa Kuniyoshi designed prints that range from powerful warriors and strange encounters to comic actors and recognizable places. A pupil of Utagawa Toyokuni, he became a leading print designer in nineteenth-century Edo. His landscapes sometimes explore Western approaches to depth, while his figure designs can compress an extraordinary amount of action into a single sheet. Moving between the city views and the heroes of the Water Margin reveals this breadth. The same attention to a strong silhouette can organize a distant building, a dramatic pose, or a comic face.

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15 works · 1819–1853

Compare a city view with a warrior print. How do the sizes and positions of the figures change your sense of distance and action?

1819–1827 · 4 works

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1829–1830 · 3 works

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1832–1853 · 8 works

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Ukiyo-e stayed popular from the last decades of the Edo period into the Meiji period. Hokusai’s daughter Katsushika Ōi painted a scene from a Chinese novel, and Utagawa Kuniyoshi drew actors as wall graffiti. His pupil Tsukioka Yoshitoshi turned legend and history into prints, Ogata Gekkō won prizes at world’s fairs, and Tsukioka Kōgyo specialized in Noh.

In the museum: Ukiyo-e room · 1 work

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Shared styles, periods, or traditions in the collection.

Original museum reproductions, with source records on every artwork page.

Artist information: British Museum, Art Institute of Chicago.

Public-domain art. An imagined museum; no museum affiliation.