Toyokuni,

Utagawa Toyokuni Born 1769 ,in Edo (now Tokyo)Died Feb.24, 1825, Original name Kurahashi Kumakichi, later Kumauemon, also called Toyokuni. Japanese artist of the ukiyo-e movement who developed the style of his master, making it One of the most popular artist today's world. Toyokuni specialized in print of Kabuki actors, and it was also known for his portraits of women.

His“Portraits of Actors in Their Various Roles”, a series of large nishiki-e, or polychrome print, created between 1794 and 1796, marked the peak of his creative work. His drawing for wood-block prints was characterized by the use of powerful and vivid lines, that achieved aneffect of exaggeration reminiscent of the style of contemporary Artist"Sharaku". Toyokuni’s later style degenerated frequently into sheer grotesquerie.

Toyokuni's two major pupils were the woodblock print masters Kunisada and Kuniyoshi, but he had a host of students in his school. Indeed, so powerful was the Utagawa school after Toyokuni's time that almost every Japanese print artist of note either had one of these two characters in his gō, or, like Yoshitoshi, was a student of one who did.
His gō, "Toyokuni", was initially used after his death by his son-in-law, Toyoshige, who is therefore known to use as Toyokuni II. Thereafter, it was handed down and used by
each head of the Utagawa school in turn. Kunisada is thus also known as Toyokuni III.

Toyokuni said: "My pictures - they are merely something that I draw, and nothing more than that!" However, his work captured the world around him, particularly the Kabuki theatre, with great clarity, and his style was a step forward; in addition, it was commercially successful, and thus freed woodblock
prints from many of the restrictive canons which had limited previous generations of artists.

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