Background
Itō was born in Tokyo, Japan, on February 4, 1898.
Ito Shinsui painting.
Itō was born in Tokyo, Japan, on February 4, 1898.
After the business of Shinsui Itō's father bankrupted, the young boy was forced to leave elementary school at the young age of nine in order to work. He found employment in the Tokyo Printing Company after serving his apprenticeship to an advertising agency for a year. As a result, he became interested in printing techniques and also in the arts.
The company took notice of his talent and offered him a place in their design department. It was here that Itō acquired the knowledge of the basics of painting from Yuki Somei, a Nihonga artist. His progress was remarkable, and the head of the design department introduced the young artist to the renowned painter Kaburagi Kiyokata. In 1911, Itō was accepted as an apprentice under the supervision of Kaburagi Kiyokata. It was Kiyokata who gave him the pseudonym of "Shinsui" and issued his first woodblock print the following year. Kiyokata did not allow him to neglect his education. Shinsui worked during the daytime whilst attending night school for further education.
Itō's painting Nodoka was first shown at the Tatsumi Gakai ("Southeast Painting Society") in 1912. The following two years, his artworks were displayed at the same exhibition. In 1914 his prize-winning painting Sajiki no Onna was displayed by the Kyodokai ("Homeland Society"), the Nihonga Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institution) and the government-sponsored Bunten show. Later he agreed to produced illustrations for the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun.
When he was eighteen, Shinsui Itō joined the Shin Hanga movement, established by the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. It united major artists like Kawase Hasui and Hashiguchi Goyo. Watanabe was amazed by Itō's paintings and wanted to create an Ukiyo-e print using the image of Shinsui Itō's painting Taikyo (Before the Mirror). 100 editions were produced for the domestic market and a further 50 for foreign customers.
Itō worked with Watanabe for several decades until Watanabe's death in 1962. During this period, over sixty landscape prints were produced while about a hundred others depicted mostly beautiful women. Also, the artist collaborated with other publishers including the Yomiuri Newspaper Company, Isetatsu, and Katsumata. His series Eight Views of Lake Biwa became a standard for the landscape print which influenced Yoshida Hiroshi and Kawase Hasui.
In 1919, at the age of twenty-one, Shinsui moved to Zoshigaya, central Tokyo. As he was extremely enthusiastic about educating the next generation, Itō established his own school of painting, the Shinsui Gakujuku in Oimachi. More than a hundred trainees were studying there, specialising in bijinga (beauty images). Due to the fact that the number of the students increased by five hundred, Itō and his family moved into a bigger property in Ikegami in 1930, and renamed the Shinsui Gakujuku the Rohogajuku, Academy of the Clear Peak.
In collaboration with his fellow Yamakawa Shuho, Shinsui Itō founded the Seikinkai (Blue Collar Society) in 1940, aiming at realism in portraiture. After he had visited China as a Japanese Navy official artist in 1939, Shinsui Itō developed a new interest in landscape prints. He published three landscape sketches Nanpo Suketchi (Sketches from the South) in 1943.
During the Pacific War, he evacuated to Nagano Prefecture, which was one of the greatest mountainous regions in Japan, and during this time he made series Shinano Jukei (Ten Views of Shinano), one of his masterworks. During his travels to various islands under Japanese rule, he produced over 3000 sketches.
Once the war was over, he relocated from the ruins of Tokyo to Komoro in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture. He moved from there to Kamakura, Kanagawa, in 1949. Around this time, Shinsui began to work with Kabuki and other subjects in order to keep a balance between bijinga and other subjects. From 1958 till 1964 the artist travelled to Europe, North and South America and Indonesia, upon which several of his landscape works were inspired by.
Shinsui Itō is regarded as one of the best known and respected personalities in Japanese society. His major works include Eight Views of Lake Biwa, Collection of Modern Beauties, Twelve Figures of New Beauties, Three Views of Mount Fuji, Twelve Views of Ōshima, Incense Party.
He received several important honours during his lifetime. In 1952 the "Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties" (Bunkazai Hōgō Iinkai) declared his woodblock designing talent to be of "intangible cultural properties" (mukei bunkazai) which were then the equivalent of being declared a Living National Treasure. Shinsui Itō received the Order of the Rising Sun in 1970.
One of Itō's artworks, Yubi, ("Finger") was depicted on a 1974 Philatelic Week commemorative postage stamp issued by the Japanese post office. Another work, Fubuki ("Blizzard") was the subject of the 1983 Japanese commemorative postage stamp as part of the Modern Japanese Arts series.
Gifu Paper Lantern
Before the Mirror
Shirahama in the Morning
Kagamijishi Kabuki Dance
Okoso Hood
Evening Cool
Passing Rain
The Fragrance of a Bath
Washing the Hair
After the Bath
Woman of the Island
In a Yukata
Getting Cool Air
Morning at Kambayashi
Evening Glow at Ajiro
A Woman Holding a Fan
Before the Storm
Evening Scene at Ishiyama Temple
Charcoal-Making at Hino
The Snow Storm
The Grounds of a Shinto Shrine in Snow
Still life
Tea-serving manners
After Bath
Beauty with Umbrella
Coolness
Yukata
Make-up
Autumn Full Moon (Jyugoya)
Mount Horn
Awazu
Firefly
Night at Ikenohata
Maiko dancer
A Geisha girl applying her make up
Birds shadow
Shinsui Itō supported Shin Hanga movement, which united major painters like Kawase Hasui and Hashiguchi Goyo. The movement aimed to revive the old structure of ukiyo-e (woodblock print) production.
Shinsui Itō married Yoshiko in 1919, at the age of twenty-one. Yoshiko gave birth to two boys in 1920 and 1921. Itō's daughter, Yukiji Asaoka, born in 1935, was a famous Japanese actress and singer.
