Watanabe Nobukazu (渡辺延) (artist 1874 – 1944)
Utagawa Nobukazu 歌川延Yōsai Nobukazu 楊斎延
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Biography:
Tokyo print designer and painter. Considered the best student of Yōshū Chikanobu (1838-1912), who worked in a variety of genres from pictures of beautiful women (biinga) to famous views of modernizing Tokyo (kaika-e), including depictions of domestic industrial exhibitions, depictions of the emperor and empress, and Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese War prints (senso-e). He is perhaps best known for his war prints. During the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Nobukazu did a considerable number of outstanding triptychs and made his reputation designing battle scenes on land an sea. He also produced lithographs. Original name: Shimada Jiro. Other gagō (art or studio name): Yōsai Nobukazu 楊斎延一 and Yōsai 楊斎.
Waseda University Library's database also shows his name written as Utagawa Nobukazu 歌川延一, which puts him in the Utagawa school lineage and is consistent with his training with Chikanobu.
Sources: The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints, Amy Reigle Newland, Hotei Publishing Company, 2005, p. 497; Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, Helen Merritt, University of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 166
