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Edutainment > Natori Shunsen - 1886-1960
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Natori Shunsen was the last ukiyo-e artist making actor portraits in traditional manner and one of the major artists of the Shin Hanga movement. His life took a most tragic end. In 1960 the artist and his wife committed suicide at the grave of their deceased daughter.
First Publication: May 2001
Latest Update: April 2013
Master of Actor Prints
Natori Shunsen was born in Tokyo under the given name of Yoshinosuke. He studied traditional Japanese painting - Nihonga - as a student of Kubota Beisen and at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. After finishing his art training, he could get an employment at a Tokyo newspaper as an illustrator.
In addition to his job as an illustrator, the artist began exhibiting his paintings in Tokyo galleries. In one of these exhibitions, the publisher and Shin Hanga promoter Watanabe Shozaburo discovered the artist Shunsen. Watanabe convinced him to start woodblock printmaking.
Publishing with Watanabe
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Watanabe published several single sheets and several series of actor prints. Shunsen worked also for other publishers, Kato Junji and Kikuchi Yoshimaru. Shunsen's main series are:
- Shunsen nigao-e shu - 36 Portraits of Actors - 1925-1929
- 15 Contemporary Actors in Kabuki Plays - 1931
- Shin han butai no sugata-e - 30 Contemporary Actor Prints - 1951-1954
Other than actor prints, Shunsen made several bijin-ga - prints of beautiful women.
A Terrible Tragedy
In 1958 Shunsen's daughter died of pneumonia at the age of only twenty-two. Natori and his wife could not get over the death of their beloved daughter. Two years later they committed suicide by poisoning themselves at their daughter's grave.
The tendency towards committing suicide for reasons not understandable to Western minds, is not only a frequent theme in Kabuki plays, but until today an obvious fact in Japanese life. Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world.
Collecting Natori Shunsen Prints
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Natori Shunsen prints were produced in small editions of for instance 150 copies for shunsen nigao-e shu and sold by a subscription scheme. This makes Shunsen prints for collectors rare and expensive. Mainly the actor prints from the 1920s are considered among the finest Japanese prints of the twentieth century and are sought after.
More about Natori Shunsen
2 object(s) by Shunsen Natori 1886-1960 in current auction Hasui Kawase and Shin Hanga - 1102
76 sold object(s) by Shunsen Natori 1886-1960 in our Art Archive
4 signature(s) by Shunsen Natori in our Signature Database
Other Pages Related to Natori Shunsen
Author: Dieter Wanczura
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Literature sources used for this Natori Shunsen biography
Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, "Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975", published by University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, ISBN 0-8248-1732-X.
The images on this web site are the property of the artist(s) and or the artelino GmbH and/or a third company or institution. Reproduction, public display and any commercial use of these images, in whole or in part, require the expressed written consent of the artist(s) and/or the artelino GmbH.
Current Local Time: Friday, May 24, 2013, 1:17:57 AM Central European Time
