Group of Three Japanese Woodblock Prints. All three show female beauties with umbrellas, with the middle Utamaro's famous "Hurrying Through the Rain." Artists from left to right: Utagawa Kunisada, Kitagawa Utamaro, and Kitagawa Tsukimaro. Informative label about ukiyo-e prints on back. 

Overall: 13 X 25 1/2 in. 

Each: 5 3/4 X 4 in. 

Depth: 1 1/4 in. 

#3748 . 

Born in the Honjo district of Edo in 1786 as Kunisada Tsunoda, Utagawa Kunisada’s family owned a small ferryboat service. Although his father, an amateur poet, died when Kunisada was a child, the family business provided him financial security and the ability to pursue the arts. During his childhood he showed considerable promise in painting and drawing, and thanks to his familial ties with literary and theatrical circles he spent a great deal of time studying actor portraits. At the age of 14 he was admitted to study under Toyokuni I, the head of the Utagawa school. His works embodied the traditional subjects of his master such as kabuki, bijin (beautiful women), shunga (erotic prints), and historical prints. His first known print dates to 1807, and his first illustrated book to 1808. Successful throughout his life, he expanded his masters’ ukiyo-e style into new formats, credited with innovative diptych, triptych, and polyptych designs that increased the popularity of woodblock prints exponentially. He often signed his works “Kunisada” or “Ichiyusai,” sometimes with the studio names of Gototei and Kochoro affixed. In 1844, he adopted the name of his teacher and became Toyokuni III, since Toyokuni’s son-in-law, Toyoshige, had adopted the gō earlier and became Toyokuni II. Kunisada passed away in 1865 in the very same neighborhood where he was born. 

Kitagawa Utamaro was born some time in 1753 in Japan. Although one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e (“floating world”) woodblock prints and paintings, particularly of beautiful women with exaggerated and elongated features, little is known of his actual life, and much that is known is contradictory and difficult to confirm. He was born Kitagawa Ichitaro, and at times used the names Yusuke and Yuki. He studied under Toriyama Sekien (1712-1788), first naming himself Toyoaki before settling on his most common moniker. Utamaro apparently married, although nothing is known about his wife and there is no record of them having had children. There are, however, many prints of tender and intimate domestic scenes featuring the same woman and child over several years of the child’s growth among his works. He is known to have made several important improvements in woodblock printing techniques, and invented at least three himself: “Jitsubushi,” which makes the background of a piece hazy, “Unmozuri,” which creates a sheen by rubbing the background with mica, and “Odoshoku tsubushi,” which involves rubbing the background with ochre for a gradient effect. His art began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s, producing over 2000 known prints. One of the few ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his own lifetime, it was his arrest in 1804 for making illegal prints depicting the 16th Century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi that made him infamous, and likely contributed to his death two years later in October 1806. By the mid-19th Century his work had even reached Europe, where it garnered particular acclaim in France, heavily influencing the Impressionists with his use of partial views and his emphasis on light and shade. 

Kitagawa Tsukimaro (c. 1794-1836) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. He was one of the most successful students of Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), and his early works bear the name "Kikumaro" until 1804 when he changed to "Tsukimaro." Little is known of Tsukimaro's life, but his personal name was Jun. He originally worked as a watchman in Kodenmachō Sanchōme in Edo (modern Tokyo), and once he became an apprentice under Utamaro he specialized in bijin-ga portrait prints of female beauties. In 1804 he was one of the artists along with Utamaro who were arrested and manacled for making controversial prints of the 16th Century military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Around 1820 he changed his name to Kansetsu and turned to scroll paintings in the Maruyama-Shijō style. His last dated work is an illustration for a kyōka poetry anthology of 1836. He also used the art names Sumitei and Shūsai, and it is speculated that he may have used many other signatures and copied other artist's styles during the period between his arrest and 1820, both to continue making art and to distance himself from his deceased and disgraced master. It is likely little is known about his life for this specific reason, as any surviving accounts describe him as a reclusive character who never married and spent most of his (known) working life in his master's shadow.