Torii Kotondo
Torii Kotondo | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 November 1900 |
| Died | 13 July 1976 |
| Movement | Shin-hanga |
Torii Kotondo (鳥居 言人, 21 November 1900 – 13 July 1976) or Torii Kiyotada V (五代目 鳥居 清忠) was a Japanese painter and woodblock printer of the Torii school of ukiyo-e artists. He followed his school's tradition of making prints of kabuki actors (yakusha-e) and involvement with commercial work for kabuki theater. His twenty-one bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) are particularly celebrated.
Life and career[edit]
Kotondo was born Saitō Akira (斎藤 信) in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. Torii Kiyotada IV, the seventh head of the Torii school of ukiyo-e artists, adopted Kotondo at age 15 and trained him in the school's specialty producing yakusha-e, portraits of kabuki actors. Kotondo studied painting under the yamato-e painter Kobori Tomone from 1914 and under Kiyokata Kaburagi from 1918. Most of Kotondo's woodblock prints date from 1927 to 1933.[1]
Kiyokata influenced Kontodo's bijin-ga portraits along with shin hanga designers Goyō Hashiguchi and Itō Shinsui. In 1925 he exhibited some of his bijin-ga at the Inten exhibition. He designed twenty-one bijin-ga prints which were sold in the United States. Seventeen of Kontodo's prints were shown at the seminal shin hanga exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1936.[2]
Authorities considered Kotondo's print Morning Hair of 1930 provocative and banned it after seventy of its hundred copies had sold and had the remaining thirty destroyed.[3]
When Kiyotada died in 1941 Kotondo became the eighth head of the school and took the name Kiyotada V.[1]
Kotondo lectured at Nihon University in Tokyo from 1966 to 1972.[1] Collectors did not place a high value on Kotondo's prints while he was alive; the prints have since appreciated in collectability and fetch prices comparable to those of the great masters.[4]
- Works by Torii Kotondo
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References[edit]
- ^ a b c Merritt & Yamada 1995, p. 155.
- ^ Torii Kotondo (1900-1976) The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints
- ^ Harris 2011, p. 85.
- ^ Harris 2011, p. 78.
Works cited[edit]
- Harris, Frederick (2011). Ukiyo-e: The Art of the Japanese Print. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-4-8053-1098-4.
- Merritt, Helen; Yamada, Nanako (1995). Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1732-9.
External links[edit]
- Torii Kotondo at ukiyo-e.org
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