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Edutainment > Articles on Art > Meiji Period > Utagawa Yoshitora - active ca. 1840-1880

Amerikakoku
by Yoshitora Utagawa

Utagawa Yoshitora was a Japanese printmaker with a wide spectrum of subjects. But he is best known for Yokohama-e - prints depicting Westerners from the enclave of Yokohama and their technological achievements like iron ships, hot air balloons or locomotives.

Student of Kuniyoshi

Yoshitora was born in Edo. But neither the dates of his birth nor his death are known. At least we knwo for sure that he was a student of the famous ukiyo-e artist Kuniyoshi. According to some sources, Yoshitora was later thrown out by Kuniyoshi. Things are a bit in the mist with Yoshitora Utagawa.

The Yokohama Prints

The Metropolis London
by Yoshitora Utagawa

Although Yoshitora is famous for Yokohama prints, the majority of his designs show conventional subjects - historical scenes and Japanese legends, town views and scenes from Tokyo, beautiful women, warriors and actors - a little bit of everything.

In the Treaty of Kanagawa Japan had to open the country to the West. The presence of the foreign diplomats and merchants was restricted to an enclave at the harbor of Yokohama. The Japanese population had never seen foreigners before. There was an enormous curiosity and a large demand for prints depicting the foreigners and their hitherto unknown technical inventions. Many of the diplomats gave commissions for portraits of their whole family - often shown with their servants and pets. This new genre of prints was called Yokohama prints or Yokohama-e - e meaning picture in Japanese.

Yokohama-e became the business of the moment and the ukiyo-e artists and publishers rushed towards the deal. Yoshitora became one of the most active artists to design yokohama-e.

Laurance P. Roberts thought that Yoshitora Utagawa had never seen any foreigners, but rather copied them from Western engravings. It does not sound very plausible that he never saw any foreigners since Yokohama is only 28 kilometers South of Tokyo. But he definitely - as many other ukiyo-e artists of the time - made many of his designs after illustrations in foreign newspapers and books. In the series Bankoku meisho zukushi no uchi - Complete Enumeration of Scenic Places in Foreign Nations - Yoshitora depicted foreign places like London and Washington.

Yoshitora used different names to sign his prints - Ichimosai, Kinchoroh or Mosai. After 1880 the output of prints by Yoshitora stopped. We do not know whether Yoshitora had retired or if he had died.

Literature sources used for this Utagawa Yoshitora biography

• Ann Yonemura, "Yokohama - Prints from Nineteenth-Century Japan", Arthur M.Sackler Gallery, Smithonian Institution, Washington D.C.
• Laurance P.Roberts, "A Dictionary of Japanese Artists", John Weatherhill Inc., New York, 1976

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Meiji Period