Artist · 36 prints
Utagawa Hiroshige & Utagawa Kunisada Prints
About Utagawa Hiroshige and Utagawa Kunisada
Utagawa Hiroshige, born Andō Tokutarō in Edo (now Tokyo) in 1797 and died there in 1858, came from a samurai family of fire wardens and inherited his father's post as a boy. Around 1811 he joined the studio of the woodblock artist Utagawa Toyohiro. Utagawa Kunisada, born in Edo in 1786 and died there in 1865, trained from around 1800 under Utagawa Toyokuni and in 1844 took his master's name, so he is also known as Toyokuni III. Both worked in ukiyo-e, the Japanese woodblock prints of the "floating world".
Hiroshige became the great landscape artist of the form. His Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–34), based on a journey along the highway between Edo and Kyoto, made his name, and his late One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58) was copied by Vincent van Gogh. Kunisada was probably the most prolific of all ukiyo-e artists, best known for portraits of kabuki actors and fashionable women. Together they produced Tōkaidō prints in which Hiroshige's landscapes are joined by Kunisada's travellers.
Utagawa Hiroshige and Utagawa Kunisada prints: reproductions of Fifty-three Stations by Two Brushes, the Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock series the two artists made together from 1854 to 1857. Hiroshige drew the landscape of each station on the Tōkaidō road between Edo and Kyoto, and Kunisada drew the figures in front. Works in the collection include Kakegawa, Ejiri, Yui, Hodogaya and Kyoto (Keishi).
This selection concentrates on the stations of the series, each sheet pairing one or two large figures, such as travellers, porters or women in kimono, with a small landscape scene of the town, coast or mountain pass behind them. The prints use the strong blues, reds and patterned textiles of late Edo printing.
The prints suit hallways, studies, bedrooms and dining rooms, and several stations hung in a row follow the journey along the road. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with low-glare acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
