1850's TOYOKUNI WOOD BLOCK PRINTS OF JAPANESE THEARTER

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Toyokuni was born as the son of a puppet maker. He learned printmaking as a student of Toyoharu . At the beginning of his career he concentrated on bijin-ga - images of beautiful women. His early works were influenced by Kiyonaga and Shigemasa . Toyokuni's success and fame came when he started making actor portraits and actor scenes. The Kabuki theaters were very crowded at that time and the best known actors were a kind of public icons. Consequently prints related to Kabuki were a hot business. Demand came from the theaters - for advertising material - and from the fans - in form of actor portraits. The production of actor portraits was like today's publication of celebrity posters. When the demand for actor prints grew faster than the master could design, the great moment of the Utagawa School had come. An ever increasing number of students produced actor prints and book illustrations. The Utagawa School was buzzing with commissions. The Utagawa School flourished so well, that Toyokuni Utagawa is sometimes mentioned as the founder of the Utagawa School. The founder was actually Toyoharu. But Toyokuni was the one who made it big and who went into mass production. The comparison may be a bit daring. The best known ukiyo-e students of the master Toyokuni Utagawa were Kunisada and Kuniyoshi . The tombstone of Toyokuni listed alltogether read more

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