Utagawa Hiroshige
(Japanese painter and printmaker, 1797-1858)
Japanese, (1797–1858)
Ando Hiroshige (b. Edo[Tokyo], 1797; d. Edo, 1858) was a very famous painter and printmaker. One of the greatest and most prolific masters of the full color landscape print and one of the last great ukiyoe ('pictures of the floating world') print designers. In about 1826 he released the Toto meisho ('famous views of the Eastern capital') landscape series of sites in Edo. In 1833-34 he published a series of 55 prints, Tokaido gojusantsugi no uchi ('fifty three stages on the Tokaido') based on his travel to Kyoto in 1830 along the Tokaido, the Eastern sea road. His work is novel in that his nature and landscape depictions differed from the traditions of sansuiga ('mountain-and-water pictures') and fukeiga (natural scenes). An Encyclopedia of World Art The New Wave: Twentietch Century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection. Laurance Roberts. A dictionary of Japanese Artists Helen Merritt. A guide to modern Japanese woodblock prints.

Hiroshige was born as the son of a fire warden. He started his career as a woodblock engraver. Hiroshige's fame is based on his landscape designs. Famous are his prints of the Tokaido, a kind of highway system in ancient Japan connecting Edo and Kyoto. Hiroshige produced more than 30 series on the Tokaido. His compositions were influenced by Western art. After his death his prints had a great impact on French impressionism. --artelino.com

* Merritt, Helen and Yamada, Nanako, "Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints 1900-1975", University of Hawaii Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8248-1732-X
* Lane, Richard, "Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print", Fribourg, 1978, ISBN 0-914427-54-7
* Laurance, P.Roberts, "A Dictionary of Japanese Artists", John Weatherhill Inc., New York, 1976
* Frances Blakemore "Who is Who in Modern Japanese Prints", John Weatherhill, New York and Tokyo, 1975. ISBN 0-8348-0101-9
* Annual CWAJ catalogs