Artists

Nishijima Katsuyuki

Nishijima Katsuyuki (b. 1945) is a prolific and popular Japanese woodblock artist. He has been perfecting his art since half a century, working in the Sosaku Hanga (creative prints) style, and thus carving and printing all by himself. He has developed a completely unique style, making his prints recognizable from across the room. Common themes are country side landscapes and city scenes. Here, the scenes do not show people or modern tools, creating a timeless beauty, where, to an extent, it is possible to imagine oneself being in the present or a century earlier just as easily. Nishijima Katsuyuki signs his prints, but many of the designs are unnumbered. With many designs and possibly recurring editions for his unnumbered prints, it seems that it was possible for him to keep them relatively affordable.

Takeji Asano

Takeji Asano(1900-1999) combines several of the typical activities of 20th century woodblock artists. He was trained at art schools in Kyoto and started out with oil painting. He then transitioned to woodblock printing within the Sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) movement. As such, he created prints from start to finish, drawing, carving and printing them himself. In the 1950 he switched to the process used by the Shin-hanga (new prints) movement which adhered to the division of labor used by traditional ukiyo-e artists. For these prints he only drew and cooperated with carver, printer and publisher to achieve the final result. Later on he turned to a more individualistic and novel style and kept creating until the very last years of his long life.

Kawase Hasui

Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) has become one of the most popular woodblock print artists of our time. Already recognized as a world-class artist during his lifetime, his designs have aged well and have, without exception, continued to capture successive generations.

Toshi Yoshida

吉田 遠志

Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995) was one of the most successful Japanese woodblock artists of the 20th century. A member of the famous Yoshida family, he was the father of Tsukasa Yoshida and son of Fujio and Hiroshi Yoshida. He started drawing as a child and was able to learn painting and woodblock printmaking from his parents. His sheer talent was visible in his early works and, supported by the guidance of his father, he already managed to design remarkable woodblock prints from a young age. Throughout his life he experimented with different art forms and produced many works. These include abstract designs, children's books, paintings and many woodblock prints. Themes are varied and encompass nature, landscapes, temples and daily life, as well as his specialty of animal prints.

Rakusan Tsuchiya

Ohara Koson

Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 - 1858) was one of the most famous Japanese woodblock print artists, considered the last great ukiyo-e master. He has had a lasting impact on both Japanese print artists as well as on Western painters such as Van Gogh and Monet and his prints are still widely admired to this day.

Kasamatsu Shiro

笠松 紫浪

Kasamatsu Shiro (1898-1991) was a prolific and famous woodblock artist. At only thirteen he started as an apprentice. He could trace part of his artistic lineage back through Kaburagi and Yoshitoshi, connecting him to the great Ukiyo-e masters of the 19th century. He created many prints in the Shin-Hanga style. Many of these depicted traditional themes like landscapes and temples, but within that Shiro displayed great diversity. His prints in this style during the period 1952 - 1960 were very successful. This enabled him to experiment, and he started working in the Sōsaku-Hanga (creative prints) movement as well, not only designing but also carving and printing himself.

Teruhide Kato

Teruhide Kato (1936-2015) was a modern Japanese woodblock artist. He attended the Kyoto Art College. After a successful career as a kimono designer, he became a woodblock artist. Here he used traditional themes in more abstract designs. Nipponprints has a wide range of his prints. Many of these depict famous places in or around Kyoto. Examples are the 1,000 Torii at Kyoto's Fushima Inari Shrine, Kinkaku-Ji, Kiyomizu-dera and Yasaka Shrine. Often these are combined with elements of nature, such as the full moon, bamboo, autumn leaves or cherry blossoms. In all, the innovative style of Teruhide Kato is unmistakable.

Gekko Ogata

尾形月耕

Gekko Ogata (1859 – 1920) was a self-taught Japanese painter and woodblock artist. He was a prolific artist with a strong work ethic and produced many paintings, woodblock prints, and illustrations for various media. In later years, attention to his works was less than for artists such as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi or Yoshu Chikanobu, but in recent years there has been renewed interest. For an in-depth overview of his life and work, there is an excellent resource in Amy Reigle Newland's "Printed and Painted. The Meiji Art of Ogata Gekko (1859-1920)". His works feature traditional ukiyo-e themes, such as flowers and beautiful women. These prints are typically relatively affordable. Another, more expensive genre is that of Japanese legends, heroes, and history. For both these genres, we have many woodblock prints on offer, and we hope to add more in the future of his landscape prints and those of other genres.

Ishiwata Koitsu

Katsushika Hokusai

葛飾 北斎

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849) was one of the most famous Japanese woodblock artists. He became an artist at a young age, lived a long life, and kept working continuously, leading to a wide body of work of such high quality that he is considered to be among the greatest artists ever.

Noel Nouet

Nishida Tadashige

Nishida Tadashige (b. 1942) is a famous Japanese woodblock print artist. His cat prints is what he is best known for, of which you can find many below. These are all high quality woodblock prints, hand-signed by the artist in limited editions. Though subjective, the cat prints are often considered remarkable in the way they succeed in conveying the different moods and characters of the cats shown.

Ide Gakusui

Hajime Namiki

Hajime Namiki (b. 1947) is a modern Japanese woodblock artist. Originally trained as a sculptor, he transitioned to woodblock printing in the late 1970s. He limits himself to a small number of themes, and within those he experiments and varies a tremendous amount. Among these themes, are trees scenes (varying from dogwood to pine trees), dragons and cherry blossoms.

Tsukasa Yoshida

Tsukasa Yoshida (b. 1949) is a modern Japanese woodblock artist. He hails from the famous Yoshida art family and is the son of Toshi Yoshida and grandson of Hiroshi Yoshida. Not easily discernible from his ancestors in talent and art-form, but with a style very much his own. He is a master of land- and moonscapes. These prints display nature, often with no or only a few human elements and create very strong atmospheres. Another common theme are prints of cats. Next to these more classic print themes, he makes innovative abstract works.

Tsuchiya Koitsu

土屋光逸

Tsuchiya Koitsu (1870-1949) was a Japanese woodblock print artist. He is known for his high-quality Shin hanga prints, excelling in the depiction of light and shadow and the expression of mood.

Kawarazaki Shodo

Kawarazaki Shodo (1889-1973) was a painter and woodblock artist. He designed many flower prints for publisher Unsodo, that are still popular today.

Koizumi Kishio

小泉癸巳男

Fu Takenaka

Fu Takenaka (1945 – 2022) was a successful woodblock print artist. She had a background in design, fashion and fabric, and transitioned to woodblock printing later in life. Her favorite themes were temples in and around Kyoto and owls. She depicted these in a dreamlike style, very distinct from other Japanese woodblock print artists. Fu Takenaka collaborated with the Kyoto-based woodblock print publisher Unsodo, but designed, carved and printed the works herself, from start to finish. They were published in limited editions, hand-signed and numbered in pencil. Since her passing Unsodo has started to complete her limited editions. Currently we have both the first of these as well as a number of remaining life-time editions on offer.

Koichi Maeda

Koichi Maeda (b. 1936) is a Japanese woodblock artist with enormous experience. Already in 1961, at the age of 25, his works were exhibited through the Japan Print Association. His early works, now rare to find, are reminiscent of impressionistic art, but his later works became more naturalistic. Still, his art is very atmospheric and echoes the nature of the woodblock prints of Kawase Hasui. His landscapes bring serenity and take the viewer to beautiful and calm places. Koichi Maeda hand-signs his prints, and they are numbered, typically in editions of 80. Pricing ranges from about 200E to 500E, depending on the design.

Koichi Okada

Okada Koichi is known for his series of woodblock prints “Twelve views of Japan”, created around the year 1950. The series might have been intended to consist of twelve different prints, but only six are known. They depict the mount Fuji seen from Hakone, Lake Kawaguchi, Lake Ashinoko, Hagoromo and overlooking Nihondaira. All these have been printed using the original woodblocks by Unsodo, the same publisher that published the first editions.

Kunio Kaneko

Fukita Fumiaki

吹田文明

Fukita Fumiaki (b. 1926) is a successful Japanese woodblock artist. He often used hard wood for his prints, which helped him to create much larger than usual prints. His subjects were innovative as well, and he pioneered scenes depicting stars, galaxies and light effects.

Shoichi Kitamura

Kitano Tsunetomi

北野恒富

Kitano Tsunetomi (1880 - 1947) was a painter and printmaker who specialized in the genre of beautiful woman.

Yamamura Koka

Yamamura Koka (1885-1942) started as a painter but was noticed by famous woodblock print publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who then published a number of prints of Yamamura Koka’s designs. After this more prints of Yamamura Koka were published by a society specifically created for this purpose by a group of supporters, or self-published with support by the society. Yamamura Koka excelled at portraits and his prints in this genre are among some of the best of the Shin-hanga movement.

Junichi Mibugawa

Junichi Mibugawa (b. 1973) is a modern Japanese woodblock print artist, working in a very distinct and novel style. It seems that the woodblocks are not carved to microscopic detail, but that by using superb printing technique he is able to create very lively imagery. Remotely analogous to pointillistic art, it seems that the prints of Junichi Mibugawa leave it to the mind of the viewer to automatically combine into vivid imagery the various easily discernible parts from up close. One of Junichi Mibugawa’s strongest point is his ability to capture the nuances of light, especially apparent in the prints where he shows trees casting their shadows. This extends to being able to capture the differences in light between the various seasons, as for example shown in his print Sunlight in Winter, that could not depict any other season. This style is very successful in displaying the countryside, woods and temples in nature. Though there is no Japanese woodblock print artist that is truly close in style, the prints of Maeda Koichi do share the countryside theme often, and with that also the use of many shades of green. Junichi Mibugawa has been very active recently, and we look forward to seeing the future work of such a unique artist. Whenever new prints of him become available, we will offer them here.

Kamisaka Sekka

神坂 雪佳

Yoshitoshi Tsukioka

月岡芳年

Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839 - 1892) was a Japanese woodblock print artist. He worked in a time when modern techniques like photography were diminishing the importance of woodblock prints as a medium, but kept innovating and helped to keep woodblock printing alive. While doing this, he produced some of the best prints of his era. His best-known series are One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts.

Yoshimoto Masao

Koho Shoda

Koho Shoda (1871 - 1946) was a Japanese woodblock print artist. His prints exemplified the spirit of the Shin-hanga movement and are widely sought after to this day.

Eiichi Kotozuka

琴塚 英一

Eiichi Kotozuka (1906 - 1981) was a Japanese woodblock print artist, working in the Sosaku-hanga style. He depicted traditional woodblock print themes, such as flowers and landscapes, but also made prints depicting Japanese cultural traditions.

Takahashi Shotei

高橋松亭

Suzuki Kason

Suzuki Kason (1860–1919) was an accomplished Japanese painter who designed a limited number of woodblock prints.

Shimazaki Ryuu

Ito Yuhan

Ito Yuhan (1882-1951) was a Shin hanga artist who designed a series of woodblock prints in the 1930s for publisher Nishinomiya Yosaku. These prints are in unmistakable Shin hanga style and depict landscapes and famous Japanese places. That notwithstanding, within the Shin hanga movement, Ito Yuhan is an absolutely unique artist with an unforgettable style. This is best exemplified in his prints where the key-block was omitted during printing, even if it was used during the creation process of the woodblocks. As a result, the sharp black outlines that are present in other Shin hanga designs are missing, and combined with printing in soft tones and with many color gradients, the result is almost like watercolor paintings.

Eijiro Kobayashi

小林英二郎

Eijiro Kobayashi (1870-1946) was a Japanese woodblock print artist who was active in the first half of the 20th century. Little is known about his life, but his art is well known due to the great success of a series of night scene prints.

Hiroshi Yoshida

吉田 博

Hiroshi Yoshida (1876 - 1950) was one of the leading figures of Japanese printmaking in the 20th century. Together with Kawase Hasui he is the most famous artist of the Japanese Shin-hanga movement that revived Japanese woodblock printing to new heights. A prolific artist, Hiroshi Yoshida traveled the world and produced landscape prints of many different countries.

Kobayashi Kiyochika

小林 清親

Joichi Hoshi

Yamamoto Hiromu

Yosaku Sekino

Gesso Yoshimoto

Sugiyama Mototsugu

Ono Shigeyuki

Ono Shigeyuki (fl. 1930s) was a Japanese woodblock print artist about whose life very little is known.

Uehara Konen

Ishikawa Toraji

Uemura Shoen

Ito Nisaburo

Arai Yoshimune

新井芳宗

Arai Yoshimune (1863 - 1941) was a son of ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Yoshimune I, and studied under Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. He worked with publisher Hasegawa/Nishinomiya on woodblock print illustrations of Japanese fairy tale books, and later also on Shin-hanga designs by the same publisher.

Man Zhuang

Gyosui Suzuki

Paul Binnie

Oda Kazuma

Oda Kazuma (1882 - 1956) was a Japanese print artist and researcher, active from the end of the 19th century. He started with lithographs, but also learned painting and woodblock printing. He became a prominent member of the Sosaku-hanga movement. His activities within the Shin-hanga were more limited, resulting only in six designs. These were published by Watanabe and very successful, but published only in low numbers.

Kawanabe Kyosai

Kawanabe Kyosai (1831 - 1889) was a 19th century Japanese painter.

Elizabeth Eaton Burton

Elizabeth Eaton Burton (1869–1937) was a versatile artist associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.

Katsuhira Tokushi

勝平得之