Katsukawa shunsho biography

Katsukawa Shunshō (Japanese )

As the leading artist of the Katsukawa school of ukiyo-e printmaking during his lifetime, Katsumiyagawa Yūsuke adopted the name of the studio as his surname to become Katsukawa Shunshō. While it was only one of the art-names (or gō) that he took in his lifetime, it is the one by which he is best known today. Shunshō covered a wide variety of subjects in his paintings and prints, but became most famous for pioneering yakusha-e (or “actor prints”), which depicted kabuki actors in costume or mid-performance. While we don’t possess any of his actor portraits in our collection, we have some done by later artists who show the evolution of the style (see The Utagawa School).

The scion of a samurai clan, Shunsho lived in Edo and studied under painters Miyagawa Shunsui and Sukoku. Until he worked primarily as a painter, but then took up the colour print before returning to painting again in In his handling of colour harmonies – he preferred warm brown, orange and ochre hues – he was influenced above all by Harunobu and Kitao Shigemasa. In his series on the world of the kabuki theatre he strove for portrait likeness, unlike the conventional Torii school, whom he rapidly surpassed. Such likeness only became possible with the advent of nishiki-e. Like Bunchō, he attached great importance to the depiction of facial expression and character, so that the public recognise the actor without reading the accompanying inscription. After Sharaku and Kiyonobu, he is the leading master of the actor portrait. His yakusha-e in the narrow hosoban format could often be combined into multi-sheet series, giving magnificent expression to the whole breadth of the stage. After he also produced numerous book illustrations, in part in collaboration with Buncho and Shigemasa. Later still, he interested himself particularly in the portrayal of beautiful wo