Shinsui Itō

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Lore & Background

Itō was born in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo. After unwise investments bankrupted his father's business, he was forced to drop out of elementary school in the third grade and became a live-in apprentice at a printing shop, where he became interested in printing techniques and the arts. In 1911, introduced by the nihonga painter Yuki Somei, he became an apprentice of Kaburagi Kiyokata, who gave him the pseudonym 'Shinsui,' and issued his first woodblock print the following year. In 1916, publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, who effectively monopolized the market, attended an exhibition of the Kyōdōkai and was struck by Itō's painting Taikyo (1916), depicting a woman in a dark red kimono under-robe arranging her hair before a mirror absent from the composition. Through Kaburagi, Watanabe proposed adapting the work into a print, and a few months later the homonymous print, known in English as 'Before the Mirror,' was published, beginning a collaboration that would last over forty years. Instead of using harsh aniline red, Itō used a natural vegetable dye, overprinting the robe several times to achieve a rich crimson color. Itō came to be known as a specialist in the bijin-ga genre, although he also occasionally painted landscapes. He established his own independent studio in 1927. During the Pacific War, Itō was drafted by the Japanese government into producing propaganda art, sent to the South Pacific and Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies, completing over 3000 sketches during his travels. After the war, he relocated from Tokyo to Komoro in Nagano Prefecture, then to Kamakura, Kanagawa, in 1949. In 1952 the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties declared his woodblock designing talent to be of 'intangible cultural properties,' then the equivalent of being declared a Living National Treasure. In 1958 he became a member of the Japan Art Academy, and in 1970 he received the Order of the Rising Sun. Itō died in 1972 of cancer; his grave is at the temple of Ryūsō-in in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

Reader's Guide

Shinsui Itō's significance lies in his role as a pioneer of the shin-hanga movement, which revitalized traditional ukiyo-e woodblock printing after its decline with the advent of photography. His collaboration with publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, beginning with 'Before the Mirror' in 1916, lasted over forty years and produced thousands of exported prints, generating great success for them both. Itō's early bijin-ga prints, such as the series Twelve Figures of New Beauties (1922–1923), are generally considered his finest works. His technique was revolutionary: he would paint a 'master painting' in watercolors, and dedicated craftsmen would make the actual prints from this master copy. His work also reflects Western artistic influence, as seen in Shoka no yoku (1922), which recalls the fullness and softness of figures by Renoir and Degas. Later in life, he was honored as a Living National Treasure, and his works appear on Japanese postage stamps, including Yubi ('Finger') on the 1974 Philatelic Week stamp and Fubuki ('Blizzard') on a 1983 stamp. His legacy endures through his contributions to the shin-hanga aesthetic, with his works held in museums worldwide including the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the British Museum.

Did You Know?

• Itō was forced to drop out of elementary school in the third grade after his father's business was bankrupted by unwise investments.
• His collaboration with publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō began in 1916 with the print 'Before the Mirror' and lasted over forty years until Watanabe's death in 1962.
• During the Pacific War, Itō was drafted to produce propaganda art and completed over 3000 sketches in the South Pacific and Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies.
• In 1952, the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties declared his woodblock designing talent to be of 'intangible cultural properties,' then the equivalent of being declared a Living National Treasure.
• Itō's daughter, Yukiji Asaoka, is an actress and singer.