Shinsui Itō

Shinsui Itō (4 February 1898 – 8 May 1972) was the art name of Itō Hajime, a Nihonga painter and ukiyo-e woodblock print artist active during Japan’s Taishō and Shōwa periods. He became a leading figure in the shin-hanga movement, which revived traditional printmaking as photography caused its earlier decline.

Born in Tokyo’s Fukagawa district, Itō left elementary school after third grade when his father’s business failed due to bad investments. He then worked as a live-in apprentice at a printing shop, where he developed an interest in printing techniques and the arts. In 1911, introduced by painter Yuki Somei to Kaburagi Kiyokata, Itō became Kiyokata’s apprentice—Kiyokata gave him the pseudonym “Shinsui”—and produced his first woodblock print the next year. His talent quickly emerged, and from 1913 his paintings appeared in public exhibitions. His works were shown by the Tatsumi gakai (Southeast Painting Society) in 1912, and later by the Kyodokai (Homeland Society), the Nihon bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute), and the government-sponsored Bunten show. Critics praised his work, and he took a job at the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun providing newspaper illustrations.

Like many shin-hanga artists, Itō caught the attention of publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, who dominated the market. In 1916, after collaborating with Goyō Hashiguchi, Watanabe attended a Kyōdōkai exhibition—a society of Kiyokata’s students—and was impressed by Itō’s painting *Taikyo* (1916), which shows a woman in a dark red kimono under-robe arranging her hair before an unseen mirror. Through Kiyokata, Watanabe proposed turning the work into a print; months later, the print known in English as “Before the Mirror” was released, starting a collaboration lasting over forty years. Itō avoided the harsh aniline red common at the time, using a natural vegetable dye and overprinting the robe several times to achieve a rich crimson. He also took care with the speckled gray background, which contrasted with the red garment, black hair, and white skin.

Itō became known as a specialist in bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women), though he occasionally painted landscapes. His early landscape series *Eight Views of Lake Biwa* inspired Kawase Hasui. His early bijin-ga, including *Twelve Figures of New Beauties* (1922–1923), are often considered his finest work. He set up his own independent studio in 1927. While his early works reflected traditional ukiyo-e in subject and style, his technique was innovative: he painted a “master painting” in watercolors, from which craftsmen made the prints, making him a pioneer in shin-hanga. Watanabe and Itō worked together until Watanabe’s death in 1962, exporting thousands of Shinsui prints and achieving great success.

From 1937, Itō returned to landscape prints with the series *Twelve Views of Ōshima*; a 1939 trip to China encouraged this shift. During the Pacific War, he was drafted to produce propaganda art, traveling to the South Pacific and Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies, where he completed over 3,000 sketches. After the war, he moved from ruined Tokyo to Komoro in Nagano Prefecture, then to Kamakura, Kanagawa, in 1949.

In the postwar period, Itō became one of Japan’s most respected figures. In 1952, the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties designated his woodblock designing talent as “intangible cultural properties,” equivalent to being named a Living National Treasure. He joined the Japan Art Academy in 1958 and received the Order of the Rising Sun in 1970. His work *Yubi* (“Finger”) appeared on a 1974 Philatelic Week commemorative stamp, and *Fubuki* (“Blizzard”) on a 1983 stamp in the Modern Japanese Arts series. His daughter, Yukiji Asaoka, is an actress and singer. Itō died of cancer in 1972, and his grave is at Ryūsō-in temple in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

Notable prints include *Yujo* (1916), which emphasizes emotional depth over physical beauty, showing a dishevelled courtesan leaning forward in sadness, with an indigo kimono against a textured gray background. *Shoka no yoku* (1922), reflecting Western influence reminiscent of Renoir and Degas, depicts a nude woman veiled in steam in a public bath, modest despite full nudity. *Haru chikashi omoi* (“Spring is Near,” 1923) shows a woman touching her lips in contemplation, set against a plain background with a wintry pine-branch pattern and heavy dark robe.