Utagawa Kunihiro (歌川国広) (artist )
Takigawa (original family name - 滝川)Ganjōsai (gō - 丸丈齋)
Kōnantei (gō - 江南亭)
Sanshōtei (gō - 三昇亭)
Shinshō II (poetry name - 二代目新折)
Tenmaya (surname)
Links
Biography:
Active ca 1816 - 1835. Osaka print designer. Kunihiro may have been associated with Utagawa Toyokuni I; otherwise, his teachers are unknown. He was an important yakusha-e artist during the early and middle periods of Osaka printmaking, with a number of pupils (the most important being Ryusai Shigeharu). Among Kunihiro's first compositions were oban nishiki-e sets depicting Nakamura Utaemon III in hayagawari (quick-change) dances...
Source: The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints.
****
Laurance P. Roberts gives a different end date for this artists productivity. He said he was active between ca. 1815 and 1843.
****
The British Museum says: "One of the most talented artists producing actor prints in Osaka in the 1820s, Kunihiro was also known as Tenmaya Kunihiro. About seventy per cent of his prints were issued by the publisher Tenmaya Kihei, so it is possible they were one and the same individual."
****
Osakaprints.com wrote: "Ganjôsai Kunihiro (丸丈齋國廣 act. c. 1816-1841 or possibly 1815-43) was a leading ukiyo-e print designer in Osaka. He seems to have been an independent artist known to have had a brief association with the Edo artist Utagawa Toyokuni I (歌川豊國 1769-1825), although the extent of his tutelage with that master printmaker and painter remains obscure.'
"In Osaka, Kunihiro produced a single-sheet print at least as early as 3/1816, signing without a forename (or pseudonym, gô). Only by 9/1821 did he add the gô "Ganjôsai" (丸丈齋) to his signature for a collaborative work with Kunishige (國重 later called Ryûsai Shigeharu 鉚齋重春). Early in his career he published with Wataki (Wataya Kihei, 綿屋喜兵衞), Tenki (Tenmaya Kihei 満屋喜兵衞), and others, but from around 1819 until the end of his active period around 1841, he published nearly always with Tenki, beginning, perhaps coincidentally, with the return of Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) to Osaka, when overall print production in Osaka rose sharply."
"As with virtually all print designers in Osaka, the subject in Kunihiro's prints was almost exclusively the portrayal of kabuki actors (yakusha-e: 役者絵). Periodically, however, Kamigata publishers issued series of full-color prints (nishiki-e: 錦絵) featuring popular summertime costume parades (nerimono: 邌物) of the urban pleasure quarters and entertainment districts. In 6/1828, Kunihiro, Shigeharu, and Yoshikuni designed prints for a collaborative series, Naniwa Shimanouchi nerimono (Costume parade in the Shimanouchi district, Osaka: 難波嶋の内邌物). These parades afforded Osaka artists with opportunities to depict entertainment figures not associated with the kabuki theater, a rather uncommon print genre in Kamigata. The faces were not true likenesses (nigao, 似顔) but stylized renderings, and sometimes hybrids of Edo and Kamigata influences."