Utamaro [antikvár]

3 — Illustration for the Humorous Novel titled 'Keepsake' Utamaro's Début Although the date is not exactly clear, in his youth Utamaro became a disciple of the famous artist Toriyama Sekien. His first pen name was Kitagawa Toyoaki and this signature is found on the cover illustration of a Bunraku Puppet Jôruri Script titled Forty-Eight Ways to Succeed in Love, published in November 1775. He was then twenty-three, and this is considered one of his earliest works. In 1776 he made a larger print using only black ink, which was pubhshed in Actor's Memorial Haiku for Ichikawa Goryu. The signature Toyoaki printed on the actor's portrait done on a narrow woodblock indicates that Utamaro had begun gaining ground as an Ukiyoe artist by this time. The picture shown above was an illustration he did for a comic novelette titled Keepsake published in 1779. Doing book illustrations and portraits of Kabuki actors was the usual thing young artists of that time did before becoming known in the world of Ukiyoe art. Utamaro was no exception.