Utagawa Sadakage (歌川貞景) (artist )
Gokotei (gō - 五湖亭)Kojima (original family name - 小島)
Shōgorō (nickname - 庄五郎)
Links
Biography:
"Utagawa Sadakage (active ca 1818-1844)... Edo/Osaka print designer and book illustrator. Important pupil of Utagawa Kunisada. In Edo, Sadakage produced bijinga, yakusha-e and surimono in the Utagawa style, often with a vitality setting him apart from most others of the school. His shikishiban surimono were frequently the equal of his teacher's finest work in that format, with many displaying imaginative departures from conventional compositions. In these, his human figures were often compressed and correlated with the proportions of the shikishiban square format. Living in Osaka from the early 1830s, Sadakage continued to produce beautifully rendered surimono in such sets as From the Six Jewel Rivers (Mu Tamagawa no uchi, 1832) for the poetry circle Ōe-ren. He was succeeded by his pupil Utagawa Sadakage II."
From The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Prints, 2005, Hotei Publishing, p. 503.
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Andreas Marks has stated that Sadakage's first book publication is dated to 1817. That does not agree, by one year, the possible dates of activity as mentioned above in The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Prints.
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As an illustrator for book publishers
Sadakage drew illustrations for Yamaguchiya Tōbei in 1827-30; Iwatoya Kisaburō in 1830 and Tsuruya Kiemon in 1833.