Utamaro Kitagawa, also known as Ichitaro, Yusuke, Katagawa Toyoaki, Sekiyo, Entaisai and Murasaki-ya, was born in 1753 and discovered in France during the second half of the 19th century by the Goncourt brothers. Utamaro was considered in the West as the greatest master of Japanese prints. After studying art in Edo (now Tokyo) under the name of Toyosho or Toyoaki with Toriyama Juzaburo he adopted the pseudo of Utamaro. Until the death of his master in 1797 he worked under the influence of Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815) and Harunobu (1725-1770) showing groups of young girls in picturesque settings.
After 1790 Utamaro worked more freely and produced several series of erotic Oban in an audacious style and with much refinement as well as prints with insects, shells or birds before creating his masterpieces with his delicate full-face portraits of women (ôkubi-e).
Utamaro was highly talented in the representing women and was hailed as the portrait painter of feminine charm.
He thus produced large quantities of prints for some 40 publishers during his career which ended in 1806, the year of his death. He had no rival regarding the representation of feminine grace or plight with his exquisite portraits or nudes. His famous Fisherwomen of Awabi as well as the Yamauba and Kintaro series (the woman with the child in the mountains) showed him at his best.
Utamaro was also at ease showing anguished, tired and enamoured characters. He represented prostitutes, courtesans, maids, rich or poor women in their attires, treating with minute precision the lines and designs of their kimonos as weel as their postures and his works had a great impact over many Western painters, notably French Impressionist artists, sixty years after his death.
At the end of his life, Utamaro went on to brave censorship while producing works that were considered as indecent. As a result he was jailed during three days in 1804 and sentenced to wear an iron collar for 50 days. Utamaro's health rapidly declined following this humiliation and the artist died two years later.
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