Torii Kotondo (鳥居言人) (artist 1900 – 1976)

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Biography:

In 2004 in Printed to Perfection: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection it says: "Kotondo was born Saitō Akira in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. He studied Yamato-e painting, ancient court and military arts with the painter Kobori Tomone [小堀 鞆音] (1864-1931). At the age of fifteen he was adopted by Torii Kiyotada IV (1875-1941), the seventh-generation head of the Torii School. Kotondo assisted in the production of Kabuki billboards, thus receiving the “‘classical’’ training in the time-honored tradition of Torii actor print design. He also illustrated magazines, such as the Engi gahō (Illustrated Entertainment News), and designed theatrical programs using the name Kotondo. In 1917 he entered the studio of Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1973..), where he studied bijinga and was exposed to the work of other Kiyokata students like Itō Shinsui (1898-1972...). His work was admitted to the Inten of 1925, and he succeeded his adoptive father Kiyotada in 1929 as the eighth generation head of the Torii line (he assumed the name Kiyotada V in 1941). In 1929 the firms of Sakai/Kawaguchi co-published Kotondo prints of Shōwa-period beauties. The publisher Ikeda produced another twelve exquisite prints of beauties between 1932 and 1934. Kotondo continued to paint beautiful women and actors, but also created some surprising kachōga. Kotondo exhibited at the Nitten in 1952 and worked as an art director for Kabuki theaters, an art consultant for television, and a teacher of dramatic arts at the Nihon Daigaku (Nihon [Japan] University) from 1966 to 1972. Kotondo used four different artist's names throughout his career: Kotondo, Masahiko, Kiyonobu and Kiyotada V."

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Kendall Brown wrote in 2001 in Taishō Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia, and Deco on page 68: "The adopted son of Torii Kiyotada (1875-1941), Kotondo continued a distinguished lineage of artists as his forebears had specialized in actor portraits since the early eighteenth century. Kotondo first worked with his father painting Kabuki signboards. He then trained as an illustrator and in the atelier of Kaburagi Kiyokata... alongside Ito Shinsui... In 1929. the same year that he became eighth-generation head of the Torii school, Kotondo started to design bijin prints. In the next six years, he worked for the Kyoto publishers Sakai/Kawaguchi, then the Tokyo publisher Ikeda. Although not an artist of great originality, Kotondo adapted the styles of Goyo... and Shinsui... often exploring subtleties of texture and pattern."

"Kotondo’s career as a bijinga specialist attests to the vitality of the genre in the early 1930s, and to its commercial nature. First, Kotondo’s corpus includes only traditional bijin: most wear kimono and a variation of the shimada hairstyle associated with geisha. Modern girls are entirely absent from his work, despite the fact that Kotondo’s prints were made when the moga was at her zenith. Kotondo’s women do not wear watches, rings, or other signs of modern culture. Only the contemporary textile patterns in a few prints disclose that these are women of the modern period. Second, six of Kotondo’s twenty-two designs were published with two or more color variations as the publishers tried more appealing color schemes. For instance, the 1929 print Nagajuban exists in five variations." (See #1164 for the Lyon Collection's print of the Nagajuban.)

[A moga (モガ) was a modern girl or flapper.]

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As his surname suggests, Kotondo belonged to the illustrious Torii line of print designers whose origins date to the late 1690s and the very beginnings of ukiyo-e. He was formally adopted into the Torii family in 1915. As with all artists of the Torii line, Kotondo began his career studying painted billboards that hung on the façade of Tokyo's kabuki theaters. By age fifteen he was illustrating the theater magazine Engeki gahō. He assumed leadership as the eighth master of the Torii line on the retirement of his father in 1929. His kabuki-related duties included stage set and scenery design.

Like Kiyonaga (1752-1815), the fourth head of the Torii line... Kotondo also developed an enduring interest in bijinga, probably stemming from his study with Kaburagi Kiyokata during his late adolescence. Kotondo's paintings were frequently exhibited at the Teiten from 1925 onwards. He is more recognized today for his bijinga prints and paintings than his work in theater illustration. His output of prints consisted of only twenty-one designs issued between 1927 and 1933 by three different publishers. After the war, Kotondo worked as a consultant for theater and television while teaching theatrical art at Nihon University."

Quoted from: The Women of Shin Hanga: The Judith and Joseph Barker Collection of Japanese Prints, edited by Allen Hockley, Hood Museum of Art, p. 124.